Please do not send me private messages unless you have found an error in this post or have a suggestion for an update. Do not ask me to a) rank your armory, b) read your WWS parse, c) validate some weird ass theory you have, or d) provide you "maths" to prove something. I have neither time, nor interest, in pretty much anything you're going to PM me about.

If you are reading this for the first time, please read the entire first post and use the search tool before posting questions. Almost every question that's been asked has been answered. Nobody here has any interest in perusing your armory and two dozen WWS parses just to tell you the same information that is posted below.

An Enhancement Shaman is an integral part of any melee group. Besides offering substantial personal DPS, an Enhancement Shaman brings group specific buffs through talents beyond those offered by a Resto Shaman. These include Unleashed Rage (an on-crit proc for 10% additional melee AP), Strength of Earth (+97 STR) Windfury (20% proc instant attack with extra AP), and Grace of Air (+88 AGI). Enhancement shamans are equally useful in a main tank group, offering increased dodge and armor, or increased threat generation.

An Enhancement Shaman is not a melee healer. While many will have a resto sub-spec and can certainly help top off a group after an AoE or step in to prevent an emergency, their gear's focus on melee stats makes them unsuitable healers in the endgame. An Enhancement Shaman should be dedicated to DPS, maximizing Unleashed Rage and totem coverage for his group.

Enhacement Shaman have four sources of damage:

• Windfury, a weapon imbue that gives the shaman a 20% proc of two instant attacks with a substantial AP bonus
• Stormstrike, a 10s cooldown instant attack with both weapons
• Elemental Shocks, shared cooldown instant elemental damage offering stealth prevention, snaring or interruption
• Fire Totems, pulsed direct or AoE fire damage

The vast majority (75-80%) of a shaman's damage comes from autoattack and Windfury. Shamans also have three on-crit procs: the aforementioned UR, Flurry (3 attacks at +30% speed) and a special clearcasting state for shocks.

Enhancement shaman are highly gear dependent, perhaps more so than any other DPS class. The 'skill' required to be effective at the class manifests in proper gear selection prior to combat; during combat the amount of 'skill' to produce respectable DPS consists mainly of staying in contact with the mob and maintaining totem coverage. This gives an Enhancement Shaman a great deal of latitude while DPSing since there are a limited number of actions that we can perform while waiting on Stormstrike and Shock cooldowns, allowing many possible global cooldowns to be used for purging mobs or removing poison/disease debuffs with no interruption of the DPS cycle.

Things we know about patch 2.4
(Or, Don't post this stuff again because we've already seen it)

• Totem UI allows individual totems to be destroyed, and is accessible through the API for macros/mods.
• Sunwell badge loot [Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality] and [Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality] are just under ~10 DPS of the S3 weapons.
• [Mounting Vengeance], drops off Sunwell trash, is the 2.4 Best in Slot OH weapon.
• Ghost wolf will be insta-cast if you max the T2 talent (alternate place to spend the 2 pts in Anticipation)
• The T6 belt/boots/bracers have had all stamina removed and replaced with Expertise. We will be able to cap expertise using these 3 items and the Shard of Contempt.
• [Shard of Contempt] from heroic Magister's Terrace will be as good, or better than, the DST.
• Shamanistic Rage in the latest build is no longer a magic effect and isn't dispellable
• Stamina added back to the T6 belt/boots/bracers, they still have expertise

Contents
1 Major Abilities
1.1 Windfury Weapon
1.1.1 Weapon Speed Interaction
1.1.2 Windfury Proc Rate
1.1.3 Can Windfury Totem avoid the cooldown problem?
1.2 Flametongue and Frostband Viability?
1.3 Stormstrike
1.4 Elemental Shocks
2 Talent Builds
2.2 The Myth of Elemental Devastation
3 Itemizing an Enhancement Shaman
3.1 Enhancement Points (EP) Stat Weight System
3.1.1 Using EP - Examples
3.1.2 Hit Rating
3.1.3 Haste Rating
3.1.4 Intellect and Mp5
3.1.5 Expertise Rating
3.2 Weapons
3.2.1 Main Hand
3.2.2 Off Hand
3.2.3 TwoHand Viability
3.3 Relics
3.4 Gems and Meta Gems
3.5 Trinkets
3.6 Enchanting your Gear
3.6.1 Weapon Enchants
3.6.2 Agility vs Run Speed for Boots
3.6.3 Enchants for the rest of your gear
3.7 Consumables
4 Enhancement Shaman in a group
4.1 How to choose totems
4.1.1 Totem Twisting
4.2 Managing your threat
5 Notes for Raid Leaders
5.1 Group compositions that work
5.2 Evaluating with WoW Web Stats
6 Simulations
7 Useful Links and Addons
8 Changelog


1. Major Abilities
1.1 Windfury Weapon
Windfury Weapon was corrected in the 2.1 patch link Windfury on the main and off hands. At some point prior to that, a hidden/internal 3 second cooldown had been added to Windfury Weapon. As a result, OH procs now (correctly) trigger the cooldown on the MH. Despite this set back to shaman DPS (net loss of about 10-15% DPS for enhancement shaman), Windfury Weapon is still the best weapon imbue to use – former CM Tseric has stated that the devs have no plans to scale the other weapon buffs to match Windfury. [footnote]http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=102731970&pageNo=1&sid=1#0[/footnote]

1.1.1 Weapon Speed Interaction
Weapon Speeds play an important role in maximizing DPS from Windfury procs. The goal is to chain WF procs every 3 seconds, as soon as each cooldown ends. Both the OH and the MH need to be as slow as possible to achieve this(they do not need to be matched in speed, just as slow as you can get it). The idea is to reduce the number of swings made during the time that windfury is on cooldown. Since the cooldown is 3 seconds, weapons speeds are preferred to be close to that speed, generally this means 2.6 - 2.8 under current itemization. The idea is that a faster weapon would proc a WF, and then strike again within the cooldown window, which means that windfury would exit cooldown and your weapon would still be on some significant portion of its swing timer, unable to proc another WF.

Many shaman will correctly use a slow MH weapon but use a fast OH such as a dagger, generally because its easier to find fast OHs than slow ones. This combination however means that your OH is much more likely to be the first one to hit outside of a WF cooldown and will "steal" the potential chance to proc, placing your main hand on lockdown. In order to maximize the potential for MH procs the OH needs to be as slow as possible.

The image below courtesy of Yo! illustrates this principle. You can see that as the MH and OH approach 2.6 speed (arbitrarily chosen as the cut off point for the scale) that the number of WF procs lost to the OH become lower, at around a 45% predicted loss rate. A fast OH with a slow MH combination has a higher rate of loss to the OH, at nearly 55%.


1.1.2 Windfury Proc Rate
When you are wielding a two handed weapon, or are using a shield, your chance to proc windfury on any landed attack outside the 3-second cooldown is 20%. When you dual wield weapons, the chance on each landed attack outside the 3-second cooldown is approximatedly 36%, if and only if both weapons are imbued with Windfury. (Original findings were posted on the WoW forums by Disquette, the thread has been removed from the official archives)

Analysis of the combat log shows that if you sum all hits, the proc rate while DWing is 20%, but that includes hits you make while inside the 3 second cooldown, which cannot actually proc WF. When you remove the ineligible hits the observed proc rate from the eligible hits becomes 36%.

1.1.3 Can Windfury Totem avoid the cooldown problem?
While you may ~think~ it will help you avoid the WF cooldown problem, the totem isn't providing anywhere near the benefit you'll get from the weapon imbue.
WF Totem has the following issues: no elemental weapons bonus (40% multiple), only one extra attack (200% multiple), lesser AP bonus (scalar). Each MH WF Totem hit would be 100% extra damage or so compared to a normal attack, and has only one chance of proc'ing flurry, any weapon procs, and UR. Each MH WF imbue hit would be 280% extra damage or so compare to a normal attack, and has 2 chances of proc'ing those things.
In a very very simplified way of looking at it, you'd have to proc MH WF 2.8 as many times using the totem as you do using the imbue, for it to be worth it.

1.2 Flametongue and Frostband Viability?
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1.3 Stormstrike
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1.4 Elemental Shocks
There are 2 possible rotations that an Enhancement shaman can use. Initially most shaman will assume that with the Stormstrike nature damage bonus Earth Shock spam will yield more DPS. However, Earth Shock is a binary spell and is susceptible to full resists, whereas Flame Shock has no binary component and will benefit from partial resist rates due to spell hit. Additionally, Flame Shock benefits from Curse of Elements and the Improved Scorch Debuff, while Earth Shock is only amplified by Stormstrike. (Both benefit from Misery)

In determining the ideal rotation, let us assume a sandbox environment with no crits and no resists to worry about. The mob will be fully raid debuffed with CoE and Malediction, Misery, and Improved Scorch Debuff. Assume that Earth Shock always has the benefit of Stormstrike, and that the Enhance Shaman in question has 2500 Attack Power, yielding 750 spell damage (approximate) with the Mental Quickness talent. Earth Shock has a spell damage coefficient of 0.42 and Flame Shock has a coefficient of 0.67.

Earth Shock Spam
This is a 6 second cycle.


Flame - Earth Rotation
This is a 12 second cycle that begins with Flame Shock.


While a single earth shock in 6 seconds is worth more than a single flame shock that is allowed to go its full 12 second DoT, the combination of the two in a single, 12 second rotation, provides superior DPS.

Finally as a third point of comparison, let us compare Earth Shock to Flame Shock directly, using only 6 seconds of the DoT component of Flame Shock. Earth Shock was computed above as providing 207.9 DPS every 6 seconds.

Therefore, you can see that Flame Shock over a 6 second period provides more DPS than Earth Shock.

2 Talent Builds
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2.1 Elemental or Resto sub-spec
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2.2 The Myth of Elemental Devastation
One of the more prevalent suggestions is that Enhance Shaman should optimize their DPS by speccing into Elemental for a 5 second shock cooldown, 5% increased shock damage, and of course the Elemental Devastation Talent, typically achieved by removing points from Mental Quickness and/or Improved Weapon Totems for an 18/43/0 build.

The logic of this build is fundamentally flawed. A properly geared Enhancement Shaman will have at most a 6% spell crit rate from Intellect. Under perfect conditions this will amount to a 1% crit gain from Elemental Devastation. Under not-so-perfect conditions, this talent would be negligible and worthless to an Enhancement shaman.
The probability of getting 2 crit shocks in a row at 6% spell crit, in order to sustain the extra melee crit bonus of Elemental Devastation, is 1-(1- 0.6)^2 = 0.118. That's about 12% uptime of an extra 1% crit from 3 talent points.

3. Itemizing an Enhancement Shaman
3.1 Enhancement Points (EP) Stat Weight System
Extensive modeling, simulation, and empirical testing by Disquette, Pater, Tornhoof, and Yo! have led to the development of a system for determining the items which produce the highest DPS in a raid environment. The Enhancement Points (EP) system assigns weights or scores to each stat point. These EP weights can then be used by hand or in automated programs such as Enhancer, Pawn, LootRank and Thottbot to score items. Today, the best tool for determining these weights is to use the Crazy Shaman's DPS & EP Calculator produced by forums member Yo! For those who cannot run the simulator, are unwilling to do the legwork, or just want to check their own numbers, the following sets of EP values are provided:

Entry Raid (T4) EP Values
If you have just hit level 70 or have been running some heroics for a while but have not started raiding KZ and 25 mans yet, your EP stat weights will be significantly different from shamans wearing high-end gear. Use these values until you have progressed into SSC/TK beyond the first 1-2 bosses. These values were arrived at using simulation of a shaman wearing best of slot quest and instance blues, with some heroic loot. Buffs were limited to what a 10 man raid would normally have - no Kings, no LotP, no flasks, and assumed lower quality gems and enchants.

Attack Power = 1 EP
Strength = 2 EP
Agility = 1.74 EP
Crit Rating = 1.97 EP
Hit Rating = 1.34 EP (explanation below at VIII.4 Itemization - Hit Rating)
Haste Rating = 1.28 EP (explanation below at VIII.3 Itemization - Haste Rating)
Armor Penetration = 0.22 EP
Expertise Rating = see the Expertise section below for an explanation

Middle Raid (T5) EP Values
These values are a generally agreed-upon set produced by the average of the most reliable closed-form model and iterative simulations across the breadth of shaman gearing possibilities. They rapidly become less accurate as you accumulate more pieces of T5-level gear. As such, using Yo's simulator to obtain individualized EP numbers is strongly advised. Note that Blessing of Kings increases the contribution of Strength and Agility by 10% and thus their EPs when it is active.

Attack Power = 1 EP
Strength = 2 EP (2.2 EP with Blessing of Kings)
Agility = 1.8 EP (2 EP with Blessing of Kings)
Crit Rating = 2 EP
Hit Rating = 1.4 EP (explanation below at VIII.4 Itemization - Hit Rating)
Haste Rating = 1.48 EP (explanation below at VIII.3 Itemization - Haste Rating)
Armor Penetration = 0.28 EP
Expertise Rating = see the Expertise section below for an explanation

High Raid (T6) EP Values
These values were contributed by forum member Sebudai based on an end-game T6 gear set, essentially with best-in-slot items for all slots. These should be viewed as a rough estimate for shaman entering T6 content, and include Blessing of Kings.
Strength = 2.2 EP
Agility = 1.69 EP
Crit Rating = 1.74 EP
Hit Rating = 1.69
Haste Rating = 1.82
Armor Penetration = 0.35 EP
Expertise Rating = 3.18 (Yo's Simulator recently changed to give EP weights to Expertise Rating)

Weapon DPS EP Values
Pitbuller and Rob have shown that it is possible to convert weapon DPS into EP values. This is useful to compute the total EP of a weapon in order to compare two weapons, as seen in this post (link to where you or someone compared Netherbane to MG Cleaver). The following values are only valid for a 2.6 speed weapon. EP would need to be recalculated for any other speeds. These are presented here because 2.6 is the most common speed for weapons.

1 MH DPS = 9.03 EP
1 OH DPS = 3.70 EP

Careful! Only use these numbers for comparing weapons; do not use them for drawing other conclusions. For example, these numbers do not mean that 9 AP = 1 DPS for enhancement shamans. Why? Note the distinction between EP and AP. 9 AP will in fact increase your DPS by more than 1; just as 1 weapon DPS will increase your overall DPS by more than 1. To understand why, imagine that 1 weapon DPS increases your DPS by exactly 1 after glances, misses, dodges, and crits are accounted for. Now throw in Flurry, WF procs, and Stormstrike and realize that the weapon is hitting more often than the tooltip says it is, so you gain more DPS from the nominal weapon DPS.
3.1.1 Using EP - Examples
First, you must make a decision whether or not to assume that you will have Blessing of Kings. As a general rule, Salvation and Might are superior buffs, so you can only expect Kings in a 25-man scenario. In this example, we’re comparing 25-man gear, so we’ll assume Blessing of Kings is active and use the T5 EP Values. Then, it’s a simple matter of looking at the stats available on each item, multiplying them by their attack power equivalence, and adding them all up:

[Valestalker Girdle]
+27 Agility (x 2 = 54)
+25 Stamina
+18 Intellect
Equip: Improves haste rating by 36 (x 1.4 = 50.4)
Equip: Increases attack power by 76 (x 1 = 76)
Total: 180.4 EP

[Girdle of the Tidal Call]
+35 Strength (x 2.2 = 77)
+30 Stamina
+20 Intellect
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 33 (x 2 = 66)
Total: 143 EP

So, Valestalker Girdle (180.4 EP) is a larger increase to melee DPS than Girdle of Tidal Call (143 EP); for our purposes, we’ll say that makes it a better item. Note that values are not assigned here to Stamina or Intellect; these stats do carry some value for raiding enhancement shamans, but any assignment of value to them would be arbitrary and is for each individual shaman to decide on her own.

Now lets compare two weapons using the weapon EP values.
[Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver]
97.5 DPS (MH: x9.03 = 880.4) (OH: x3.70 = 360.75)
+27 Stamina
Equip: Improves hit rating by 10. (x1.4 = 14)
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 19. (x2 = 38)
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 12.
Equip: Increases attack power by 30. (x1 = 30)
Total MH EP = 962.4
Total OH EP = 442.75

[Netherbane]
96.5 DPS (MH: x9.03 = 871.4) (OH: x3.7 = 357)
+25 Agility (x2 = 50)
+21 Stamina
Equip: Increases attack power by 40. (x1 = 40)
Total MH EP = 961.4
Total OH EP = 447.05

Comparing the two weapons we can see that the difference in the MH for each weapon is relatively minor with a 1 EP difference, but in the OH the Netherbane performs better with a 5 EP difference.

3.1.2 Hit Rating
Hit Rating is a subject of much anxiety among Enhancement Shaman. Hit Rating is valuable, but beyond hit capping your special attacks it provides less benefit per point to our damage than an equivalent item budget amount of AP, Crit, Haste, or Expertise.

Since we can get a large quantity of +Hit from talents (9%), our special attacks (windfury and stormstrike) are already hit capped. All the extra +Hit rating on your gear is going toward improving white damage only, which typically comprises between 40%-50% of your total damage. When you consider the itemization costs of hit rating compared to crit rating and AP, which directly impact 90% of a shaman's total damage, you can see why hit rating is given lower precedence. Take the talents to hit cap your specials, any hit rating on gear after that is icing on the cake.

A common misconception is that you "have to hit before you can crit." This is a fallacy and illustrates a misunderstanding of the attack table. (Note that this is in reference to white damage which uses a single roll system.) Your Hit Rating will not impact your Crit Rate in any way.

A second misconception is that a miss is a "missed opportunity for a WF proc" and that more Hit Rating will generate more WF procs. This misconception is generated from the flawed assumption that all swings are possible WF procs. However only swings that are outside of the WF cooldown are eligible to proc WF. A good portion of your autoattack hits will never be capable of producing WF procs. A 5 minute fight with no flurry would see 115 white swings with a 2.6 speed weapon. A Shaman might look at that and think that 0.36 * 115 = 41 possible WF procs, but that is incorrect since each successful proc locks out 1-2 hits that follow, shrinking the pool of actual eligible hits. It is actually quite difficult to calculate the number of attacks that you *should* have producing WF in a given amount of time, and that is why we rely on simulators to generate the EP value of Hit Rating.

There is no magic value of +Hit that an Enhance Shaman needs We need as much of every stat as we can get, but hit rating is just less important than the others. That does not mean that the goal is to have low hit rating either though. Rogues and Warriors require large amounts of +Hit to be effective because of their rage and combo point systems, and because they do not have talents that can hit cap their specials before considering hit on gear. Enhance shaman have no such feedback system and are able to hit cap specials through talents - therefore, hit rating above and beyond your talents is great to have, but is not a necessity.

3.1.3 Haste Rating
Haste Rating will directly increase the contribution of white swings to your DPS - 1% Haste will generate 1% more auto attack DPS. Prior to patch 2.2 Haste Rating became the superior stat, but the 2.3 patch reduced its EP value closer to that of Hit Rating.

Modeling at one time indicated weapons hasted between 1.51 and 1.41 speed will actually experience a sharp decrease in potential Windfury DPS. The range of 1.51- 1.41 speed was believed to cause the main hand to always finish a swing just before the end of a WF cooldown, making you wait longer for the next eligible swing that can proc WF. If hasted in this period for a long duration, you could expect WF DPS contribution to decrease. However, you'll also experience many more white swings during that time, and so the loss of potential WF procs should be offset by the increased white DPS. It is no longer believed that the 1.5 to 1.4 hasted speed will actually cause any decrease in DPS - you should notice an overall increase.

There is no need to worry about the 1.51 - 1.41 hasted weapon range. The original claims about the supposed DPS loss had done no empirical or simulated testing to back up their modeling. More recent testing has indicated that whatever potential WF DPS is lost because of swing timer issues is more than made up for by the gigantic leap in autoattack DPS.

3.1.4 Intellect and Mp5
Intellect on gear is not a significant source of DPS contribution. Pater has a short writeup exploring this here.
Mp5 is almost universally agreed to be a hunter stat that is wasted on enhance shaman gear. Note that the more you decide to contribute in a "hybrid" manner (healing to top off yourself and others) the mana pool will become slightly more important, but not such that you should sacrifice significant DPS upgrades to hold on to 15 Int on another item. The combination of Judgment of Wisdom and Shamanistic Rage (use it early, use it often) should prevent you from running out of mana even in full rogue leather gear - unless you're having to spot heal.

3.1.5 Expertise Rating
Patch 2.3 will change all weapon skill rating into weapon expertise rating, which converts into Expertise skill at a rate of 3.95 expertise rating:1 Expertise, and reduces the chance for your target to dodge and parry by 0.25% per point of Expertise. [Shoulderpads of the Stranger], which used to provide 10 dagger skill rating, will now provide 10 expertise rating (all weapons).

The parry reduction element of Expertise will have only marginal use in raid settings: mobs cannot parry attacks made from behind. Many bosses randomly turn to cast attacks and can parry while turning, but this possibility is too random to value significantly. Unlike parry, mobs can dodge attacks from behind and Expertise is currently the only way to reduce the number of dodges. The dodge reduction element of Expertise will vary from encounter to encounter: it will be useless against bosses that are constantly casting (e.g. Shade of Aran, High Astromancer Solarian, Reliquary of Souls) because mobs cannot dodge while casting, but useful against mobs that do not cast or only cast instant spells. Expertise has been shown to affect yellow damage as well as white damage, so under the second circumstance it is actually more useful than hit rating for enhancement shamans.

We still don't know how Expertise's dodge and parry reduction affect the one-roll white attack table. For now, the community is assuming that it converts dodges and parries into hits that do not have a chance to crit. On the other hand, we are now confident that Expertise will allow yellow attacks to crit, since they are resolved through a two-roll system. Thus, we will estimate expertise rating to be similar to the weight of hit rating, with some exceptions.

First, expertise rating is only useful in chunks, because there is no concept of having 2.5 Expertise - the Skill values are all rounded down to whole integers. To get around this, you first need to sum up the expertise rating across all your items, divide by 3.95, take the floor, and multiply by 3.95 again. This gives you a "white hit rating" equivalency. Note that this makes expertise rating EP discontinuous. One expertise rating may be worth 0 EP because it is not enough to give you an extra skill point -- e.g. you go from 14 expertise rating to 15 expertise rating -- while a jump of two expertise rating at the same point may have a surprisingly high EP -- e.g. you go from 14 expertise rating to 16 and thus 0.75% dodge reduction to 1.00% dodge reduction.

Next, we must account for the fact that Expertise, unlike hit rating, also effects the yellow damage from special attacks in addition to the white damage from auto-attacks. To correct for this, you need to multiply by the ratio of melee damage to white damage, or (Yellow % of damage + White % of damage)/(White % of damage). Also, because white crit rate as a percentage of landed swings decreases as hit rate goes up, but with the two-roll system, yellow crit rate stays constant, we must adjust for that. Finally, we must multiply by the EP of 1 hit rating, to convert our "hit rating" equivalency into EP.

Our final expertise calculation is:
EP =

Example Calculation:
Assume that we are examining a new piece of gear that will bring our total Expertise Rating to 17, Hit EP is 1.4, Crit% is 30%, White% of DPS is 50%, Yellow% of DPS is 40% and the remaining 10% is shocks and searing totem.

Expertise EP =
Expertise EP = 45.12
Note that this value is not the EP stat weight of Expertise Rating, it is the total sum worth of the Expertise Rating on all your gear.
3.2 Weapons
Optimizing enhancement shaman DPS requires running two slow weapons with Windfury Weapon on both weapons.

The best way to choose between multiple items in the same slot is to run Yo's simulator, once for each item, using the stats that you would have with that item equipped. Do not post asking which weapon is best: find out for yourself by running the sim. That said, here are some general guidelines.

A frequently asked question is how to wield weapons with differing speeds but similar DPS values, such as using a Rising Tide and a Syphon - is it better to put one weapon in the main/off hand over the other? Simulation results indicate that it makes little difference which hand the slower weapon is wielded in. It appears that in general, a 2.x/2.y = 2.y/2.x.

3.2.1 Main Hand
Arena Season 3 weapons (e.g. [Vengeful Gladiator's Cleaver]) are the best currently available.

Any combo of [Rising Tide] and [Syphon of the Nathrezim] or a pair of Syphons is the second-best option for those unable to attain an 1850 arena rating.

Arena Season 2 weapons (e.g. [Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver]), [Dragonstrike], [Wicked Edge of the Planes], [Netherbane], and [Talon of the Phoenix] round out the list of third-best choices.

Orcs should prioritize axes for the +5 Expertise racial bonus. This is believed to be applied per hand non stacking, so an axe/mace combo only applies expertise to the axe, and an axe/axe combo would apply 5 Expertise to each hand.

The differences in DPS within these "tiers" are relatively minor. Which weapon is best for you, or which weapon to mainhand and which weapon to offhand, can only be found by using the simulator with your stats, and no general conclusions can be drawn.

3.2.2Off Hand
OH itemization is fairly poor early on, but recent changes in patch 2.3 have added several new options in KZ and ZA that will help fill the gaps. If you are not yet raiding, the best choices for OH in a WF/WF setup is a 2.6 speed Gladiator weapon from Arenas, a crafted Runic Hammer (2.4 speed) or a blue one-hand weapon available in several heroic instances (Auchenai Crypts last boss drops a 2.6 speed one-hand axe). Failing that, get yourself a green 2.6 speed off the Auction House.

An epic dagger with high dps (such as [Malchazeen] or [Guile of Khoraazi])and imbued with Flametongue can be used to temporarily replace a green or blue OH weapon. This comes at the cost of reduced Windfury procs, reduced Stormstrike damage, and a reduction in Flurry uptime. This should be seen as a stopgap measure only, not a weapon that you should commit to using for long periods of time.

Current best choice for an offhand is any of the Season 3 Arena weapons ([Vengeful Gladiator's Cleaver]).
A [Rising Tide] or [Syphon of the Nathrezim] comprise the 2nd best options available.
Rounding out the list are [Netherbane] or [Fury] as your third choice options.

3.2.3 TwoHand Viability
2H weapons are strictly inferior for PvE DPS situations, and reasonably poor for PvP as well. Talents and mechanics of shaman DPS at lvl 70 are built around DW. 9% +Hit while DWing through a 0/42/19 build allows all special attacks to be hit capped through talents alone, while a 2H will only receive 3% of the hit benefit. DW also scales better with AP. 2h effectively gains (1.0 * 0.95 hit rate) = 0.95 from AP and DW gains (1.5 * 0.74 hit rate) = 1.11 from AP. The more +hit you have (until we reach cap) the greater the difference between the two is. At a certain point (easily reached when raid buffed), this difference in gain from AP will outweigh the bonus base DPS of a 2H weapon over similar ilevel 1H weapons.

The second largest benefit you bring to your group is Unleashed Rage, and your Flurry and UR uptime will take a large hit from using a 2H, as strings of dodge/miss/non crits become compounded by a single, slower swing time. Threat concerns are even more problematic with a 2H because of large WF procs, requiring that you heavily pad your threat against a tank.

And finally, as mentioned in the Windfury Proc section, DW with WF on both weapons results in an increased chance to proc WF off either hand (36%). 2H weapons will not benefit from that increased proc rate.

To illustrate:

Note the differences here. 2H has a higher flurry uptime because DWing will consume the 3 charges faster, but the Uptime for UR is much higher for DW than 2H, leading to greater group synergy.

Derivation of the Unleashed Rage uptime:
UR Uptime =

HitsPer10sec =

Windfury =

Flurry Uptime =

3.3 Relics
The two best choices are [Totem of the Astral Winds] and [Stonebreaker's Totem]

A: Astral Winds EP = Percent_of_WF_Swings * Astral_Winds * Elemental_Weapons
B: Stonebreaker EP = Uptime * (B1 + B2 + B3)
B1: Stonebreaker EP to WF = Percent_of_WF_Swings * Stonebreaker * Elemental_Weapons
B2: Stonebreaker EP to SS = Percent_of_SS_Swings * Stonebreaker
B3: Stonebreaker EP to white damage = Percent_of_white_Swings * Stonebreaker * (1 - MissRate)

Physical Damage breakdown:
Assuming two 2.6 speed weapons, flurried to 2.0 speed, means you get around 10 white swings per SS cooldown. 40% of those swings will be WF, meaning 10 white swings, 2 SS swings, 4.8 WF swings. 10+2+4.8 = 16.8
Percent_of_WF_Swings = 4.8/16.8 = 0.286
Percent_of_SS_Swings = 2/16.8 = 0.119
Percent_of_white_Swings = 10/16.8 = 0.595
(This breakdown is conservatively in favor of the Astral Winds Totem. Many WWS parses from raids show the balance slightly shifted away from WF towards white swings)

A: 32
B1: 44
B2: 13
B3: 65 * (1 - Missrate)

A = Stonebreaker_Uptime * (B1 + B2 + B3).
32 = Uptime * (44 + 13 + [ 65 * (1 - Missrate) ]
Let Missrate = 19%
Then Uptime = 29%

As miss rate decreases, so does the required uptime to break even. An enhancement shaman with +9% hit from talents and no hit rating on gear would see a 19% miss rate against boss mobs, resulting in a required uptime of 29%.
Changing some values for more hit gear, we find that even if your miss rate is better than 2% the required uptime is 26.4%. This gives us a fairly good window of possible required uptimes for the Stonebreaker buff over a wide variety of gear, with a good conservative estimate being 30%.

Now what does it take to achieve a 30% uptime? Here’s a simplified formula for determining this.

(Seconds per Shock) = (Stonebreaker proc chance) * (1-Spell miss rate) * (Stonebreaker duration) * (1/Stonebreaker Uptime)

(Seconds per Shock) = (0.50)*(1-0.14)*(1/0.30) = 14.3

This means that on average, a shock every 14.3 seconds is the minimum needed to maintain 30% uptime on the totem buff and thus make it come out ahead of the Astral Winds totem.

Conclusion: The Stonebreaker totem should be superior to the Totem of Astral Winds on average if the shaman can shock at least once every 14 seconds. Note that Stonebreaker has a 10 second hidden cooldown.

3.4 Gems and Meta Gems
In general, [Bold Living Ruby] should fill every socket unless there is a socket bonus that does not require using a Blue gem color, and where the socket bonus is worth more EP than what the loss of the dps stats on the blue gem would be.

If you are matching gems for socket bonuses, use the following:
Red socket: [Bold Living Ruby].
Yellow socket:[Inscribed Noble Topaz].
Blue socket: [Sovereign Nightseye].

The [Rigid Dawnstone] is always the wrong answer for enhance shaman.
The [Bold Living Ruby] will always be better then [Bright Living Ruby] in a raid environment due to Blessing of Kings.

Naturally the epic BT/Hyjal versions of these gems follow the same logic and you should be able to extrapolate which gems to use.

[Relentless Earthstorm Diamond], Best choice for a meta gem. This gem will scale with your crit rating. The 3% crit damage can be roughly approximated to raise your DPS by 0.03 * Crit Rate. At 30% crit rate this amounts to nearly a 1% gain in damage dealt.

[Thundering Skyfire Diamond] gives 240 haste rating for 6 seconds. This is your second choice for meta gems as it appears to have a 1 minute cooldown. Shaman with lower crit rates (20% or lower, geared in heroic/blue gear, just starting 25mans and KZ) will benefit slightly more from this gem over the RED.

[Swift Skyfire Diamond] will yield a very minor DPS increase - same for [Potent Unstable Diamond]

3.5 Trinkets
Trinket gains are converted using the EP formulas above in the itemization stat weights from above, and listed as greatest EP at the top.

• [Dragonspine Trophy] 160.25 EP = ( 40 + ( 325 * HasteRating * 10 * 1.5 / 60 ))
  Assuming a 1.5 PPM
• [Berserker's Call] New drop from Zul'Aman. 150 EP = 90 + ( 360 * 20 / 120)
• [Madness of the Betrayer] 142 EP = ( 84 + ( 20 * HitRating ) + ( 2.4 * 10 / 60 * 300 * ArmorPenetration ))
  Using 2.4 PPM (see here) the uptime is 40% giving a passive -120 Armor
• [Tsunami Talisman] 141 EP = (( 10 * HitRating ) + ( 38 * CritRating ) + ( 340 * 10 * 0.9 / 60 ))
  Assuming a 0.9 PPM
• [Ashtongue Talisman of Vision] 137.5 EP = ( 275 * 10 * 0.5 / 10 )
  Corrected in patch 2.3 to have the listed 50% proc rate, and observed at this rate on the PTR.
• [Darkmoon Card: Crusade] 120 EP
  At a full stack, since this will take 10-15 sec to achieve, the EP might be considered less valuable.
• [Bloodlust Brooch] 118.3 EP = ( 72 + ( 278 * 20 / 120 ))
• [Hourglass of the Unraveller] 109 EP = (( 32 * CritRating ) + ( 300 * 10 * 0.9 / 60 ))
  Assuming a 0.9 PPM
• [Abacus of Violent Odds] 96 EP = ( 64 + ( 260 * HasteRating * 10 / 120 ))
• [Drake Fang Talisman] 84 EP = ( 56 + ( 20 * HitRating ))
• [Kiss of the Spider] 79 EP = (( 14 * CritRating ) + ( 10 * HitRating ) + ( 200 * HasteRating * 15 / 120 ))
• [Romulo's Poison Vial] 49 EP = ( 35 * HitRating )
  And some unknown value from the nature damage proc, which is usually 1-2% of your damage. Unless you're totally starved for +Hit this probably isn't a trinket for shaman. Especially as you become better geared the proc will become less and less of your total damage done since it cannot scale with your gear. This trinket was most certainly designed with warriors and rogues in mind, not shaman.
• [Darkmoon Card: Wrath] The value of this card is low once your buffed crit rate is 30% or higher.

3.6 Enchanting your Gear
3.6.1 Weapon Enchants
[Enchant Weapon - Mongoose] 4.8% crit per proc (double procs stack) and 2% haste.
[Enchant Weapon - Crusader] provides 60 Strength (120 AP) at lvl 70 per proc.
[Enchant Weapon - Potency] is a constant +20 Strength (40 AP).

Clearly Mongoose is the preferred enchant, although Crusader can be a cheaper, but still effective alternative. Potency should be completely avoided.

[Enchant Weapon - Executioner] is roughly equivalent at high T5/T6 levels of gearing to a single enchant of Mongoose. However, Mongoose/Executioner or double Executioner will not outperform the dps benefit of double Mongoose unless the Enhancement Shaman is geared with nearly unobtainable values of Armor Penetration.

Executioner currently does not stack from multiple hands, each proc when DWing will simply refresh the buff. It is unknown if this is intended, since this deviates from how other weapon enchants function. Obviously the value of Executioner will increase as you gain more -Armor gear. At entry raid level a shaman will probably gain more from dual Mongoose enchants. At high T5 content and beyond, Executioner will become more valuable.

Evidence suggests that Mongoose and Executioner have nearly the same uptime and PPM, around 40-45%

3.6.2 Agility vs Run Speed for Boots
For PvE, either [Formula: Enchant Boots - Boar's Speed] or [Formula: Enchant Boots - Cat's Swiftness] are going to be big payoffs. Increased run speed is hands down the best enchant you can get for PvE. Derivation:
So for a 5 minute fight if you spend roughly 4 seconds moving between adds, running to the boss, etc, Run Speed provides a superior DPS benefit.

3.6.3 Enchants for the rest of your gear
Asked often enough that it ends up needing its own section. These are the enchants contributing the most to DPS. Stength is always preferred over AP due to the effects of BoK.

Helm - Glyph of Ferocity (34 AP, 16 Hit)
Shoulders - Greater Inscription of the Blade (15 Crit, 20 AP) or Greater Inscription of Vengeance (30 AP, 10 Crit)
Cloak - Greater Agility (+12 Agi) or Subtlety (-2% Threat) if you feel threat constrained
Chest - Exceptional Stats (+6 Str/Agi)
Bracers - Brawn (+12 Strength)
Gloves - Major Strength (+15 Strength)
Rings - (Enchanter Only) Stats (+4 Str/Agi)
Legs - Nethercobra Leg Armor (50 AP, 12 Crit)

3.7 Consumables
Translating the benefit of consumables using EP values we can assess DPS consumables in order of greatest benefit:

• [Flask of Relentless Assault] 120 EP
• [Elixir of Major Agility] 110 EP
• [Fel Strength Elixir] 90 EP
• [Elixir of Major Strength] 70 EP

Potions on 2 minute timers:

• [Haste Potion] [(1.48 * 400) * 15]/120 = 74 EP
• [Insane Strength Potion] (120*2*15)/120 = 30 EP

4 Enhancement Shaman in a group
4.1 How to choose totems
In a 5-man party your DPS is generally limited by the threat that your tank can produce. The most efficient way to increase small party DPS is to provide the tank with more threat. Totems should be chosen that compliment the tank, rather than the rest of the party, even it if means only 1 player is receiving benefit from the totem. Priority of totems always goes to the tank in small groups.

Warrior and Paladin tanks should always receive Windfury, unless they are severely under-geared and need the extra armor/dodge just to survive. Rationale for using GoA for a Warrior or Paladin tank should never be to provide crit. Feral druids that are tanking should always be given GoA.

In a raid setting this becomes slightly more complicated as bastardized groups are thrown together. Recommendation is to follow this set of rules:

Rule 1 - If you are ever in doubt about which Air totem should be used, your raid leader has probably failed to put together a complimentary group. Reference the Group Compositions That Work section for details on putting groups together. Encourage proper group compositions for maximum benefit to the raid.

Rule 2 - If a DPS warrior is in your group, he needs Windfury for his rage feedback mechanism. Windfury provides a larger DPS gain to a DPS warrior than any other totem to any other class.

Rule 3 - If you are in the Main Tank group, the warriors should be given Windfury unless it is a non-threat limited fight where survivability is more important. Prot Paladin tanks will benefit more from Wrath of Air and Feral Druids that are tanking should obviously receive Grace of Air.

Rule 4 - If there is no Warrior, but 2 or more Combat Sword Rogues are in the group, they will benefit slightly more from Windfury from increased opportunities for Sword Spec procs, than from Grace of Air.

Rule 5 - If your group has no warrior, and 2 or more Feral Druids or Hunters, Grace of Air is the totem of choice.

4.1.1 Totem Twisting
Sometimes the best way to solve a conflict of interest in a group is to give everyone what they want. Note that Blizzard has stated that Totem Twisting is considered a bug, and plan to remove the ability to do this in a future patch.

Windfury Totem places a 9 second buff on party member's weapons to imbue them with the extra attack mechanic. This can be manipulated to allow Grace of Air or Tranquil Air totems to be placed "simultaneously" with Windfury Totem.

You'll most likely want a macro to do this if you so choose, and a mod to track the time remaining on the windfury buff. A common one looks like this:
Totem Twisting has both its advocates and its detractors, it is not an agreed upon mechanic or strategy.
Pros:

• Party gains 88 Agility or extra threat reduction
• Overall DPS of the party is increased

Cons:

• The shaman increases time spent in global cooldown, impairing his ability to decurse or purge mobs.
• The mana cost of refreshing 2 totems every 9 seconds while Stormstriking is roughly 14,000 mana every 2 minutes. This will limit the ability to use shocks, and requires very careful timing of Shamanistic Rage, may require JoW from a paladin, and definitely requires 5 points in Totemic Mastery.
• Until you are very practiced with the technique you will find your attention devoted to watching the timers which means you will be less attentive to changes in the game environment
• Latency or simply being late to refresh the Windfury totem will cause the Windfury buff to run off your party's weapons, which means they are losing opportunities for a Windfury proc.

4.2 Managing your threat
Enhance Shaman are severely threat capped - not as badly as a Ret Paladin, but worse than a DPS warrior. With no active threat reduction we rely on buffs, items, and strategy to reduce our threat. Methods to reduce your threat are listed below in order of Most to Least effective. Remember that threat reduction is multiplicative, not additive.

• Spirit Weapons - Enhancement talent that reduces melee threat by 30%. This is a staple talent for our spec. If you don't have this, you're walking the crazy line. Most effective since its always on and isn't reliant on a paladin.
• Blessing of Salvation - 30% threat reduction. If you only have one paladin in your raid, this is the buff you need. If you don't have a paladin in your horde raid, you need to pressure your leadership to recruit one.
• [Prism of Inner Calm] - until Blizzard changes this the item is worth around 10% threat reduction as long as your raid buffed crit rate is over 30% (and by the time you're killing Vashj it damn well better be). Keep an eye on this as Blizzard may buff it at some point.
• Strategy - A lot of this depends on your tank and his TPS generation. If your tank can generate around 800 TPS you can give him a 10k threat lead and then unload without much worry of catching up. If you find yourself approaching the threat cap you should stop shocking first since they aren't affected by Spirit Weapons. A suggestion was made of "downranking" your weapons for a few seconds, allowing you to continue to provide Unleashed Rage to the group with lowbie weapons so that your threat isn't increasing.
• Battle Ankh - the improved ankh talent can certainly come in handy when clearing raid zones. You need to be extremely careful about pulling aggro however - if you pull and die, the mob will pick the next highest threat target to attack, which may not be the tank. A much safer method is to allow yourself to die to AoE, and have buffers primed to give you DPS buffs when you ankh. At that point you'll be free to take Blessing of Might if you didn't have it before, since your tank will now have a hefty threat lead.

5 Notes for Raid Leaders
[u][b][size=+1]5.1 Group compositions that work[u][b][size=+1]
While building groups for Enhancement Shaman its important to remember that while we are a support class, we also require support from other group members to enhance our own DPS. Battle Shout is one of the most important buffs that Enhancement Shaman require, followed by Blessing of Salvation/Might.

There are three possible group configurations that can make use of an Enhancement Shaman, listed below in order of the magnitude of buff they would bring to your raid as a whole.

Melee Group
Enhancement Shaman (Windfury Totem)
Rogue
Rogue
Rogue/Feral Druid/BM Hunter/MM Hunter/Ret paladin
Fury or MS Warrior

The Melee Group is the top priority to receive an Enhancement Shaman, it is where we provide the most utility.

Tank Hybrid Group
Enhancement Shaman (Windfury Totem)
Prot Warrior
Prot Warrior
Prot Paladin or Feral Druid
Tree Druid

This group brings an increased threat window for the rest of the raid, allowing the DPS classes to attack earlier and at full force, and should be the second priority for an Enhancement Shaman if you're able to bring 2 to a raid. If the Warrior or Paladin is the Main Tank, Windfury should be used. If the Feral is the Main Tank for an encounter, Grace of Air should be used.

Hunter/Feral Hybrid Group
Enhancement Shaman (Grace of Air Totem)
Hunter
Hunter
Hunter
Feral Druid

This should be an extremely rare situation since very few guilds would ever have room in a roster for a third Enhancement Shaman, or it could be used for an encounter specific group setup. Regardless, a stacked hunter group benefits far less from Enhancement than any other physical DPS class since they cannot make use of Unleashed Rage. A Resto Shaman can actually benefit hunters more with the additional mana throughput. This group also places a strain on the Enhancement Shaman to maintain totems at the appropriate range for the melee and ranged in the group.

5.2 Evaluating with WoW Web Stats
Determining if an Enhancement Shaman is performing to his potential is tricky for a raid leader as the damage output can be very random from one raid to the next, and there are no clear indicators of "using the wrong ability at the wrong time" as with other classes. The following list is intended to assist raid leaders on where to focus their efforts.

• First and foremost, familiarize yourself with this article so that you can talk the talk with the shaman. You need to understand what Stats benefit them and what sort of weapons they need, as well as getting a good understanding of just how random our DPS can be.
• Examine your Enhancement Shaman on the Armory. Ensure that his gear meets the principles outline in this article. He should not have Hit gems, his gear should be properly enchanted for maximum DPS benefit, and he should be wearing the most appropriate gear for the spec. You may need to do some research on WoWHead or Thottbot to help make gear upgrade recommendations. He should not be trying to wear hybrid gear for spell damage or healing.
• Group buffs are the primary reason you're bringing this shaman and so you should check to make sure he's fulfilling that role. Using WWS you can check to see how many times a totem was dropped on a fight by viewing the Shaman's record for that event. Check the "Performed" section and see how many times a totem was dropped. Multiply that by 120 seconds and compare to the length of the fight. The estimated uptime should be pretty close. If there are several minutes of uncovered time, your shaman is not keeping totems down and your melee group is suffering. Unleashed Rage should ideally have 100% uptime which approximately requires a 30% crit rate fully buffed.
• Evaluating personal DPS contribution is tricky because it depends on armor level of the boss, your strategy on the boss, and the nature of the fight itself.
  
  His spread of damage should follow a general trend. Windfury attacks should account for 30-40%, Stormstrike for 10-12%. If its significantly less than that, the shaman may have forgotten to put Windfury on one or both weapons (or it ran out) or may not have been using Stormstrike on every 10sec cooldown.
  
  Shocks should be anywhere from 0-15% of his damage depending on the threat situation or magic immunities. His shock damage should come from a roughly equal number of Flame and Earth shocks, indicating a good DPS rotation of Flame-Earth-Flame. A perfect rotation would have 10 shocks per minute of combat, but given interference with stormstrike and using GCDs for consumables we could consider 7-8 shocks a minute to be an acceptable range.
  
  AutoAttack should make up the rest of his damage, normally 40-50%.
  
  There should be a minimal level of Parried attacks, indicating that he attacked from behind the boss. His Miss Rate on WWS is mostly irrelevant unless he hasn't hit capped his specials. Except for cases where debuffs cause loss of Hit %, no special attack should ever be Missed (only dodged/parried). The number of white attacks missed should not be used as an indicator of "needs more hit rating."
• In the rare situation that you had two Enhancement shaman and need to compare their performance this becomes very difficult. You cannot simply say that they have 'similar gear', you will need to compare fully raid buffed stats including all group buffs for Hit, Crit, and Attack Power. Group composition is extremely important. If one shaman only had Trueshot Aura but the other had LotP and Battle Shout, the second shaman (all else being equal) should have a significant advantage over the other. Differences of 100 AP or 5% crit can easily explain large gaps in DPS output. Also check and compare Shock rotations and Stormstrike use. More often than not though, the culprit is group buffs or using an Elixir instead of a Flask.

6 Simulations
The nature of windfury and flurry interactions make closed form modeling extremely difficult and prone to a high degree of deviation. The Enhancement community turned to combat simulators as a way to model our DPS to make informed decisions. Currently the best utility for doing this is Yo!'s simulator.

To use Yo's simulator, load the armory or view your character paperdoll in-game. Make a note of which buffs you have active. Input your stats into the first panel, including your strength and agility for Blessings of Kings calculations. (You do not need BoK on your character for this) Your Hit% should be a sum of the paperdoll value and any from talents. (Nature's Guidance and Improved Dual Wielding do not show up in the paper doll)

Change the panel to the Procs and Buffs pages and enter things appropriately. Not all trinkets are represented, some things like the Bloodlust Brooch should be added as a static AP value to your stats. (Benefit * LengthOfBuff / Cooldown)

Yo's Sim is most accurate when its run for long periods of time, multiple times. If you want EP values, the recommended method is to run the sim for 5,000 - 10,000 hours between 5-10 times, taking the average of all the EP values as the result. If you want to simply compare DPS between item upgrades, multiple runs at 1,000 hours should be sufficient. The length of the sim run helps to smooth out the randomness of windfury/flurry in our DPS model.

7 Useful Links and Addons

• DisqoDice - written by Disquette this addon will display nicely sync'd bars illustrating shock, stormstrike, and windfury cooldowns, and a new watershield timer to take advantage of the new watershield in 2.3.
• Enhancer, available at WowAce. This in-game mod will display EP tooltips, can import personal EP values from Yo!'s simulator, and can show a wide variety of shaman data in-game such as WF cooldown, totem twisting timer, etc.
• LootRank is useful for comparing gear based on statweights. This page includes all the new ZA gear as well as support for Haste, -Armor and Expertise.
• Pawn Addon Latest version now supports haste, expertise, and -Armor, as well as having a GUI to fill in the stat weights. This will add a "rating" to your item tooltips that you can fill in with the EP values, allowing you to view the EP value of an item in-game.
• ShamanFriend Provides a large number of shaman related alerts for missing weapon imbues, missing water shield, and can output results of purges, interrupts, bloodlust to your party/raid. Also features a totem timer.

8 Changelog

• 13 Feb 08 - Changed prot paladins to wrath of air rather than windfury
• 8 Feb 08 - Finished re-formatting the wiki stuff back into normal forum formatting
• 6 Feb 08 - Complete restructuring and a decent rewrite of the post to match the upcoming wiki article

Great post.

Bravo!

I think Lootzor and Pawn work the same way: you give each stat a "weight" value; large weight means the stat is more important.

I'm more comfortable working with small numbers than with the 100s, but as long a the ratios are the same, I think you're good.

For someone at the Kara/Gruul/Mag level (2200 AP, 25% Crit, 22% Hit), I believe Tornhoof and I agree that the lootzor values are:

Str = 1.1
Agi = 1.0
AP = 0.5
CR = 1.0
HR = 0.7

In fact, here's a link to that search in Lootzor: http://www.lootzor.com/index.php?c=7...u1hedu.7heeu.5

Disquette's values were a little different, mainly because used a broader range of stats and averaged across them all.

As a matter of style/utility, I'd think you'd put these at the top of your post rather than at the bottom, but that's a pretty minor comment.


I'm not sure where it is, but you might want to add a sentence or two showing why INT and MP5 are wasted on our gear--the weakness of our DPM, basically.

Very good post.

I would add the GM/HW one-handers in the list of available blue offhands. I use the axe currently because heroic bosses despise dropping weapons for me. (Got exalted with CE trying to get an offhand..)

Perhaps you were referring to having both weapons enchanted, but Enchant Weapon Potency is only +20 Strength (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=22553).
Just to add to it, the 2.6 blue OHs drop in Heroic UB from Hungarfen, Heroic Old Hillsbrad from Lieutenant Drake, and Heroic Crypts like you mentioned; the level 70 blue HWL weapons are also 71.7 DPS.

Good post.

Thank the maker!

I was getting headache's trying to de-crypt the Itemization thread

Might be worthwhile to dispel some common misconceptions and set in stone a couple things, such as:
--Windfury Weapon suffers neither from the OH 50% penalty for OH procs, nor the dual-wield 24% miss rate. This means that (assuming identical weapons), MH and OH procs are identical.
--Haste Rating is not bad for Enhance Shamans. There was some comically faulty theorycrafting on Blizzard's Shaman forums a while back claiming that Haste Rating actually lowered DPS. This is not the case. At all. Haste Rating will increase DPS substantially, as for any melee class with a high % of damage being white. However, Haste Rating suffers from diminishing returns as it increases and pushes WF procs closer together.

Some links to the only non-arena offhands until you hit Al'ar:

Bloodskull Destroyer
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28210

Boggspine Knuckles
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27747

and The Harvester of Souls
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=27872

Oops on the Potency value. That was me copying from someone else's post.
Updating with some of this stuff now.

Well, the Windfury bonus AP is the same for each hand yes, but the procs are most definitely not the same since the OH weapon damage is reduced by 50%. I had already included a statement about this in the original post though, its in the WF section at the top.
Haste was mentioned already as well.

Edit - Can someone provide the data on Gems (8 Str and the 4Str/4Crit ones) and the meta gems of choice?

This may sound stupid but I thought I'd ask anyway; but ever since the WF-3second-cooldown nerf, has anyone tried not applying WF to their off-hand and using the WF totem to apply the WF to the off-hand? I know its less WF dmg, but maybe it out-weighs the internal cooldown of applying an off-hand self-WF?

If you cant even do this kindly disregard my post, I havent been enhance in awhile.

Oy. I totally almost put this into the post and then I thought. "nah, I think people are done asking this".

.... and so it shall go into the post.

No, do not use WF totem instead of WF Weapon. Its not nearly the same thing.

Haha, thanks! I haven't been reading the shammy-enh posts since I went resto at 70 and then ele eventually. Very good post none-the-less.

Btw im a retard...I thought WF totem buffed both weapons...stupid question! Having said that, if it was possible to self-imbued WF and totem OH WF, maybe it would be better...but who knows.

Thanks again!

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean 1 CR = 2 AP = 1.43 HR?

Yeah, that's right. "Equivalences" are just inverted "weights." For equivalencies, you're just saying "I would be equally happy getting 1 CR or 1.43 HR." For weights, you're saying "HR is 0.7 times as good as [1.0] CR."

I really like the "weight" system myself, because it allows for quick input into lootzor, and it also conforms to the AEP paradigm. You can think of those weights as AEP for us (since Agi is 1.0 as well) or CritEP if you prefer. (Technically, AGI is 0.97 = 22.1*1.1/25, but I think 1.0 is close enough for simplicity's sake.) I believe pawn uses the same approach, to give each item a "value" in the tooltip.

I've got exported pawn strings for Pater and Disquette's values:

( Pawn: v1: "AEP (Disq)": RedSocket=17.6, CritRating=1.51, Strength=2.2, MetaSocket=24, Agility=1.47, HitRating=1.08, BlueSocket=17.6, YellowSocket=17.6, Ap=1 )

( Pawn: v1: "AEP (Pater)": RedSocket=17.6, CritRating=2, Strength=2.2, MetaSocket=24, Agility=2, HitRating=1.4, BlueSocket=17.6, YellowSocket=17.6, Ap=1 )

So you can use the /pawn import command and paste those in. I scaled both to use a baseline of 1AP, and assumed 8str gems in sockets, and 24AP gem in metasocket.

That's pretty cool.

I have also added a link to Lootzor's top 10 results for every slot in my sig.

Yeah I wanted to make sure, because it seems some of Lootzor's items are out of date with the 2.1 changes and I was working on a list for myself. Now we need to figure out weighting and value for haste rating.

I can (or a helpful helper can) put haste rating into my sim pretty easily. I don't have any procs yet, but I should make the top ones (mongoose and that haste hammer at least) a priority.

Totem of the Astral Winds isn't exactly farmable, you can't reset heroic instances. It does take 15 minutes from zone in to the first boss though, should be worth doing it anytime you're doing any other Heroic in Auchindoun.

We should also include int/mp5 in our weightings (perhaps in two minute chunks). Although alot of leather is quite rated quite highly in the lootzor link, I think my back of the envelope calculations showed that we shouldn't neglect Int/mp5 completely: http://elitistjerks.com/showpost.php...postcount=1026 http://elitistjerks.com/showpost.php...postcount=1039

It may be that, at higher levels of gear, the percentage of damage that consists of Shocks will be so low that it's more worthwhile to just gear without thought to mana and reduce the number of shocks. But, at my level, with 0 spell damage, shocks are still a significant portion of my damage (~156 dps with debuffs). Since I am at the point where it is possible to run OOM during a full burn cycle, there must exist some equivalence between extra mana vs extra melee stats.

AP and +hit has the advantage of doing double duty of increasing melee damage while boosting mana gains, but relying on SR completely is also not always optimal. Timing SR with a trinket maximises mana gain, but you have to time it when you can be certain you won't waste SR procs. However, in many encounters, there exist damage windows where it's optimal to save your trinket for. These two scenarios don't always occur at the same time.

With a full burn DPS cycle being estimated at least ~13k mana per two minutes, we need to consider the question: What is the optimal ratio of intellect and mp5 to melee stats?

This will be a multivariable function which several critical points exist. Some things to consider:
-Does there exist any itemization points where the additional melee damage outweighs being able to shock every cooldown?
-If there is not, what is the minimum mana pool, mp5 and mana from SR required to sustain a full burn cycle.

Panny: I guess your mileage may vary. Some shaman have mana issues, others never do. It all depends on your gear, your raid composition, and the encounter.

It's impossible to have a realistic "dps weight" for mp5, int or stamina, because there is no direct connection between them and the other dps stats. At best, you should establish the amount of mana used in a 2 minute burn cycle, and develop a formula to express how much minimum mana a shaman would need, based on his AP (since AP directly feeds your mana regen with SR). mp5 is going to always, always, always be an inferior stat to Int for a decently geared shaman, since that shaman will be regenerating more mana with SR than he has room for in his small mana pool, and Int is a much cheaper itemization stat.

Furthermore, a 'full burn cycle' of mana consumption is nearly always constant, so there's not a lot of variables involved. Just determine the formula needed for complete sustainability based on buffed AP and weapon speed.

Personally, I raid with a Ret pally. <3 JoW

Curious, i wonder how big the difference is between the WF weapon enchant, and the WF totem (both talented).

The biggest difference is that Windfury Weapon is 2 attacks. The totem is only 1.

so if i read this correclty . axe of the deepwoods with the flurry axe fails for lvling and i should get a slower weapon instead of the flurry 1 . im lvl 52 btw

As for further models you can add my EquipOptimizer, which includes my Enh model.
http://code.google.com/p/wowequipoptimizer/

The other shaman models are just fine, they should give you correct results.
The holy priest model is fine too, the shadow model is not finished
The protection tank model is not completely finished, but the results should be ok.
Rogue isn't even started.

It has some certain problems with selecting the right gems and it has some problems if you actually lock too many item slots, you should always leave like 2-3 open, otherwise it might as well crash.

My thought was that INT would have such a low weight in comparison to the other stats that it wasn't worth calculating. But I suppose we should back that up with some math.

My approach with "weights" is to answer the question, "If someone gave you 1 item point, what would you want it to be?" Right now, the answer is 1 Str (weight 1.1). If you couldn't get that, you'd want either 1 CR or 1 Agi (weight 1) or 2 AP (weight 0.5). If you couldn't get those, you'd say 1 HR (weight 0.7).

Where does INT fit in there? I'll do a super rough calc that perhaps other people could refine.

1 INT = 15 mana.

Converting mana into damage: ES spam is 675 dmg / 535 mana, or 1.26 DPM. (Not accounting for FS/ES rotations or SS debuff, rough numbers.)

So the 1 INT gives 15 * 1.1 (kings) * 1.26 = 21 damage. Generously, we can say that you get to reuse it every 2 minutes because of SR, making this 21/120 = 0.18 dps.

(I'm overlooking the ES cooldown, because the max number of shocks in a 2 min window is controlled by mana, not by that cooldown.)

Tornhoof's sim and my sim agreed earlier this week that 100 AP would add about 22 dps (to someone with approx. full kara gear). That's 0.22 DPS/AP, compared to 0.18 DPS/INT. Ratioing down from AP's weight, the weight for INT should be about 0.5 * 18/22 = 0.41.


These are really rough numbers and there might be errors. But if they're approximately right, INT is so weak that you'd prefer even 1 point of AP to 1 point of INT.

Nice Pater but don't forget to add the miniscule spell crit rating that a point of Int gives as well

It seems to have some absurd droprate, which is a pity. I got mine on the first kill and I can't say I'm mad that I did :P.

I like seeing this result. It makes me feel good about giving INT at least some weight in my Lootzor string. It raises a couple questions for me:

What's the maximum mana pool required for 2 minutes of SS, ES/FS, and totems between Shamanistic Rage (plus mana pot) cooldowns?
I think someone has done this work before, but it's easier for me to duplicate it than to search for it.
SS x 120/10 = 236*12 = 2832
SoE, WF, Mana Spring x 1 + Searing x 2 = 225 + 243 + 90 + 153*2 = 864 (note this is with Totemic Focus, adjust upwards by 25% if this doesn't apply to you... now that I explicitly see that this talent is only worth 288 mana/120 sec = 12mp5, I might get rid of it)
Mana gained from Mana Spring = 12*120/2 = -720
ES x 120/6/2, minus one lost to GCD = 535*9 = 4815
FS x 120/6/2, minus one lost to GCD = 500*9 = 4500
Totemic call with 5 seconds left on totem durations = -238
2832 + 864 - 720 + 4815 + 4500 - 238 = 12053

We can then safely say that any INT which raises our buffed mana pool above 12053 is going to be useless, if we can get a refill off of SR + mana pot. If one waited until their mana pool were depleted by the amount of a Super Mana Pot at the start of a fight, chugged one, and then continued chugging each time the CD was up, you would get a larger "effective" mana pool without any more INT. A Super Mana is at least 1800 and averages 2400 mana, so if you accept the average, you don't need INT which raises the buffed mana pool above 9653. (Do pots still crit?)

Can we expect to fill that up with Shamanistic Rage?
Obviously, this is going to vary a lot with gear; and as most shamans know, it also depends on the fight (whether or not you can get a nice solid 30 seconds of attacking the ass end of a boss mob without having to move). We know that you get 15% of your AP back per proc. Do we have hard data on whether this is PPM or percentage-based?

I was under the impression that SR was PPM based, obviously no-cooldown.

SS x 120/10 = 226*12 = 2712
SoE, WF, Mana Spring x 1 + Searing x 2 = 288 + 312 + 115 + 196*2 = 1107
Mana gained from Mana Spring = 12*120/2 = -720
ES x 120/6/2, 5 seconds + 1 sec for gcd = 460*10 = 4600
FS x 120/6/2, 5 seconds + 1 sec for gcd = 430*10 = 4300
Totemic call with 5 seconds left on totem durations = -237
2712 + 1107 - 720 + 4600 + 4300 - 237 = 11762

With 2 extra shocks and the 5% extra damage adding up to a third extra shock in damage. With one out of the 20 proccing Elemental devastation for +9% crit as well on average.

With an Enhance/Ele spec of http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...00000000000000

So it's a savings of only about 300 mana with 3 extra shocks of damage, and a solid chance at proccing +9% crit every two minutes.

SR in my experience seemed to be PPM, as with a two hander it was proccing almost every swing fairly reliably. However dual wield seems to be PPM per hand, so you end up with almost the same effect at about twice the rate. The description is also fairly typical of a PPM description on the tooltip.


Also keep in mind that once your attack power reaches a certain breakpoint the time frame changes. You'll be filling your mana pool and able to refresh all your totems inside the window of SR, and even get free shocks off as well.

With SR lasting 30 seconds and enough attack power, you can almost guarantee yourself full mana at the end of 30 seconds. With a full totem refresh.

So a full totem refresh is about 8 seconds with GCD I believe. Which leaves 22 seconds for other spells. Which is 3 shocks untalented, or 4 talented.

If we assume the enh/resto build and full mana at the end of SR we have:

SS x 90/10 = 236*9 = 2124
SoE, WF, Mana Spring x 1 + Searing x 2 = 225 + 243 + 90 + 153*2 = FREE (SHould be able to drop and recover during SR uptime)
Mana gained from Mana Spring = 12*120/2 = -720 (will be up during SR)
ES x 90/7/2 = 535*6 = 3210 (there's rounding here, but rounding down due to not being able to land a partial shock)
FS x 90/7/2 = 500*6 = 3000
Totemic call with 5 seconds left on totem durations = -238 (Should probably not count as it will happen during SR?)
2124 - 720 + 3210 + 3000 - 237 = 7377

With Enh/Ele:

SS x 90/10 = 226*9 = 2034
SoE, WF, Mana Spring x 1 + Searing x 2 = 288 + 312 + 115 + 196*2 = FREE
Mana gained from Mana Spring = 12*120/2 = -720
ES x 90/6/2 = 460*7.5 = 3450 (15 shocks, so one needs to be 8, averaging as it can go either way)
FS x 90/6/2 = 430*7.5 = 3225
Totemic call with 5 seconds left on totem durations = -237
2034 - 720 + 3450 + 3225 - 237 = 7752 (with 3 more shocks and 75% of the damage of another shock)

NOTE that these are only if you are able to maintain a shock rotation and re-drop all totems during SR, ending at full mana. If you are able to proc 400 mana/second, you can get 12000. 500 mana every two seconds (which is more reasonable at higher ends of gear) is 7500 mana during SR. The closer you can get to the end of SR with full mana without interrupting your shock/SS rotation, the closer to efficient you get. Right now I only ever seem to need the cheap combat mana pots to keep shocks going. Although I'm usually aggro capped before that, or have trouble keeping on the mob for the full duration.

Quick Conclusion
I have some overlap and rounding issues here, and will assume that hardly everyone keeps up a perfect dps rotation on every cooldown, or gets 100% uptime. These numbers are pointing at about 7400-7800 under optimum conditions and a certain level of AP. I'd say 8500 is probably the ideal amount of mana to allow for breathing room WITHOUT relying on pots. If you have pots you either can get more breathing room or a lower mana pool. Or save the cooldowns for non-mana pots.

I also hardly ever find myself using totemic call unless I'm moving away from my old totems, as I'd rather refresh them one at a time and not take the buffs off my group for sake of my mana efficiency. There's also water shield to consider, which procs off of many more conditions then Lightning Shield, so I usually keep it up all the time.

Not including CoE, imp. scorch, Misery or SS debuff is a mistake imho, ES+FS rotation is ~156 DPS. According to the simple maths I did comparing Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless vs Cyclone Spaulders, if you accept that it is possible to run OoM, there's definitely cases where going for the int is more advantageous.

I suppose creating a ratio isn't as useful as other stats, as after your mana pool is a certain size compared to your gains from SR, it stops contributing to your DPS. The fact that the question "how much int do I need" will vary for different encounters, your stats, and raid composition. With no gear changes, on one week of Gruul, I gained 3-4k mana per Shamanistic Rage. This week, with a Survival Hunter and two Warriors in my group (meaning I get Battle Shout for the entire fight rather than just the first half), I gained 7.5k mana.

They can, but generally, Fel Mana Potions are a better bet (3.2k mana restored).

Also, don't forget that Bloodlust is 750 mana. Obviously, you don't cast it ever 2 minutes, it needs to be considered.

I use WWS to give me an indication of how much mana will be restored in a given encounter. I believe it is PPM.

All this theorycraft is irritating though. Surely with all the high-end raiders we have posting here, some would have a heavy leather gear setups they can post experience about using?

6k unbuffed mana. 1400 unbuffed ap.

I never go out of mana in raids. I spam stormstrike every cast, and shock every single opportunity when threat isn't a concern. During unleashed rage, I mana dump every chance that I can, even using Fire Nova Totem / Searing Totem rotations =X. Mana is just not an issue unless my unleashed rage is interrupted somehow. (Void Reaver is annoying for this reason. I usually save my healthstones for Unleashed Rage, and just eat a few ground poundings).

We frequently have JoW up however.

Well, I'm nearly 100% kara leather and have been avoiding anything with mana for a while. The only time I have mana problems is when I forget to use SR.

All accounts of JoW make me rather jealous.

Pater, is that with a full shock rotation?

I'm really curious how you guys are managing to do it, since I know that, for example, on Magtheridon I can go all-out without worrying about threat, which means I can shock every CD, which means I need to chug at least 1 mana pot over the course of the fight -- even with 1494 unbuffed AP, 6.3k unbuffed mana. I can only assume that the difference is JoW? (Or are you on a clicking rotation for Magtheridon? That would also do it.)

Just to provide a contrary description of my experience on Void Reaver: I get to stay in through pounding (we brought a ridiculously low number of melee, like two, to our first kill last night) but I am threat-capped from just autoattacking + SS, so mana's not a concern there. (It might be if I had two piece Tier 5, as I would definitely take advantage of the instant-cast LHW on that fight. Even though it would increase my threat, I sometimes have to run out for pounding and/or pop a healthstone when I'm getting scared that I won't get healed.) I think if our 4th tank were better, I would not be quite so threat-capped, he really can't keep up with the first 3.

Panny -- occasionally I have mana problems when pushing shocks to the max. Most of the time the problems are SR-related, though: either forgetting to use it, or having some of it wasted because of shatter and the like.

With that kind of unbuffed AP you should be getting pretty much an entire mana bar back on Mag. The first 1-2 min of Mag are very mana intense because you (should be) redropping WF and SoE at each Channeler as you move. The last Mag kill we did I popped SR as soon as we started and just started burning mana down on the Channeler. After that just use it every time its up and you shouldn't have to use any pots. Do you not have paladins at all? If you do, and are not getting JoW, you need to yell at them. My paladins claimed they "couldn't keep judgments on" until I bitched about it non stop and made them do it. Now they keep it up all the time because they can see the huge returns we get from JoL and JoW.
You can bring more melee than that - we did VR first time last night also, had 4 tanks and 5 melee in the pounding the whole time. 1-2 Shaman can chain heal the melee through the entire fight with no issues.

Maybe there should be a few lines in the OP about which pally buffs are best for enhancement. In an ideal world, you'd get all four (kings, might, wisdom, salvation), but in reality we usually only run with three paladins. I tend to prefer kings, might, salve as my combination, due to the fact that kings and might mean I gain a healthy amount of mana back from each SR proc.

These are the pros and cons of each based on my experiences:

Kings - Increases all stats by 10%.
Pros: Good in almost every situation.
Cons: Causes a decent increase in threat generation due to harder hits and more shocks.

Might - Increases AP by 220.
Pros: More AP means stronger attacks, more SR mana returns.
Cons: Threat generation when combined with kings. Paladins have to buff this separately and refresh during battle.

Wisdom - Returns 42 mp5.
Pros: Best blessing for mana regen, shines on long fights.
Cons: Not always necessary with proper use of SR.

Salvation - Decrease threat generated by 30%
Pros: Best blessing for threat problems, allows 30% more dps.
Cons: Useless blessing when not threat capped.

In general, the other shaman always want kings, wisdom and salvation. I usually have to coordinate with the wisdom pally to get the five minute version of might and have it refreshed during battle. I placed that under con because if the pally is dead or healing then you're out of a buff after the first five minutes.

It's also worth noting (perhaps under might?) that on nights where we have a fury warrior in the dps group I tend to need salvation more, due to battleshout.

This is slightly off topic, but proper placement of totems helps a lot during the first 2 minutes of Mag. With 30yd totems you can place them between the first and second channeler and not have to redrop until you move to the third one. I usually end up dropping totems twice after the pull, and it makes a noticeable difference in my mana pool going into phase 2. I also save SR and bloodlust till the 3rd channeler, but that's just my personal preference.

I've noticed a lot of fights where good totem placement can make mana management much easier, like Mag and Hydross. Just make sure your group knows where you're placing the totems so they can stay near them.

One thing that seems conspicuously absent from the collected theorycraft is metagem choices.

EDIT: appears that relentless earthstorm is the best choice, after reading one of the source threads. Still -- would be an appropriate addition to this excellent summary.

99% sure the math was done in the itemization thread proving 3% is better. It's nicer now that it also procs on yellow damage instead of just white.

You too? My condolences ... although I'm basically numb by now ... I think I'm up to 25+ runs without seeing it drop. Exalted with consortium, got all sorts of ethereum keys, a fel barrier, etc ... but that totem .... that totem ... why. Why. Why.

In other news, my other white whale, Skulker's Greaves, was harpooned, brought to port, and made into exceedingly expensive perfumes in the deep hours of the night yesterday.

PS: A guildmate (and member of these forums) has been trying to talk me out of socketing those pants with 3 rigid dawnstones. He's been reading these forums closely and is insisting I go for triple +8 str.

Here's my armory, with me wearing them in all their unsocketed/unpatched glory:

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...oroth&n=Khrash

Once I patch them later today, I'll be starting with a baseline of 1498 ap and 203 hit unbuffed. (If I push cap, I can change out edgewalker to rapscallion, and/or pick up a pendant of the perilous to replace worgen claw).

Advice on which 3 gems to stuff in them?

Grats!

I'd agree with your friend. I give STR a 1.1 weight and HR only 0.7.

Right now, I have 4cr/6sta in mine for the yellow slot, but that's because I just haven't gotten around to changing it since settling on the stat weights.


According to a few sims and other approaches, HR just isn't that hot above some level. You don't even need to be that close to the cap (25.5) before it starts giving diminishing returns. (As far as why this might be, I would guess it's because SS and WF only have 5% base miss rate.)

Yeah, I do redrop WF/SoE; I also drop Fire Elemental Totem for the first 2 channelers (we MD one onto the first tank and he tanks 2 in one spot), as well as earth shocking heals/shadow bolt volleys. I typically use my trinkets on the channelers but save my SR for Magtheridon, which lets me get a full bar back if I take a few seconds off of shocking. Heroism, I don't bother popping for the first 2 Channelers because I would just pull aggro, I usually save it for the 3rd or so. I'm going to assume that any difference left over is due to JoW; we usually carry 3-4 Holy paladins, maybe I can get one of them to start judging it for me.
Your friend is right. Go triple +8 str, or if for some perverse reason you want the +dodge rating bonus, use one of the purple +4 str/+6 sta gems.

Rob, once you've had a pally judge wisdom in a fight like Magtheridon where you're essentially standing there the entire fight (minus any backup clicking duties you may have), you won't want to ever go back. In the case of Mag, JoW restores just about the same amount of mana SR does when using SR every cooldown (SR restores about 410 mana on proc untrinketed in raids).

In any event, I too have harbored the fear of losing too much Int due to wearing leather but the more my Int goes down, I can see that it truly has a very small effect. Now I just need this link handy when I bid on rogue gear.

Can you elaborate on this point just a little bit? Since the WF bonus is not halved by dual wielding, why do you not want WF to proc on the off-hand? Is it because the WF bonus is applied to damage that's been reduced by the DW penalty? Or because itemization naturally lends itself to weaker off-hand weapons?

Offhand procs do less damage than main hand procs, and they share the same lockout timer. By minimizing the amount of offhand procs in comparison to main hand procs the theory is that you will generate more overall damage. This isn't quite as noticeable at earlier levels of itemization since it has been revealed that the AP from the Windfury proc applied to the offhand is not halved as you would expect, but once you reach SSC/TK/MGlad level gear it becomes much more pronounced as more of your damage is generated from AP.

drats - Good idea on the totem placement, don't know why I didn't think of that.

Krashz and Negative - I went through the itemization thread like 3 times and somehow keep missing the couple of posts that debated meta gems, if someone can summarize it up for me to put in the OP or link it, I'd be obliged. Quite busy at work right now.

Hey!

As an enhancement shaman, I have problems often with my task being recognized (as a buffer).

So I have a petition tho whoever knows how to code, that would greatly help our spec.

Make an addon that calculates the DPS given to party by our buffs. This can be somewhat complicated, but at least some parts are easy.

By selecting Skill Details in swstats, you can get how many Windfury damage a player did. So, it should be easy to extract those numbers and summarize them up in a separate addon. I'm finding that rogues do an average 7% damage from my Windfury Totem, and warriors go up to 15%.

Now, this part was easy. How to calculate STR totem (or AGI if it's down instead of Windfury) and Unleashed Rage?

I'm sure the mats are not easy for certain classes considering instants and procs, but if Recap and SWStats can get so much accurate info about that data, it should not be hard for someone with enough knowledge on scripting and game mechanics to code something easy that can report at the end of the fight something like:

Tradewind's own damage: 340932.
WF given to party: +89023.
+STR given to party: +14932.
UR given to party: +40834.
Total damage added to the raid: 485721.

The problem with such an approach is that every other class will want to be recognized for its own "non-personal DPS contribution" and some are much more easy to quantify than others.

Also keep in mind that an enhancement shaman is compared to a restoration shaman when boosting the melee group.

Your contribution is 13 extra strength for SoE totem, 133 AP for WF totem and 10% AP (we could average this to 200 AP I guess although it is scalable) from UR.

I agree that previously ele/enh shaman were competing with resto shaman. But this comparison was a lot better pre-expansion than it is now.

If you take one of the many generic melee dps powerhouse groups for example...
feral,
dps war,
rogue,
rogue,
<some shaman>

A resto shaman can still provide great buffs to this group similar to an enhancement shaman. However the resto shamans totems and the other members group buffs (Battle shout, lotp) will be entirely wasted on the resto shaman.

The enhancement shaman drops marginally superior totems but also takes advantage of his totems and the other melee buffs. Also Unleashed rage is a 300 AP buff in a raid setting which is certainly significant since it is almost always up. With these factors altogether, there is a very significant gap in the raid strength of a melee group with an enh shaman and one with a resto shaman.

You really don't need an addon to calculate this you can do it ahead of time with a piece of paper and a calculator.

Sure, and you can sum all your damage lines in the Combat Log for the last 10 minutes fight and come up with your total damage.

Are you retard? I was speaking about something fight-specific, not some dumb and generalistic %'s everyone knows already.

Don't make posts like this please.

Thanks for the WWS logs -- looking at your armory, you have about 4% more crit and 100 more AP than I do, yet deal about 10-15% more DPS. I wouldn't think the delta was that large, especially with some of that being made up by my 6-7% advantage in hit rating.

After seeing how high your DPS is on the WWS logs, I'm definitely interested in a high AP / high crit build, and lowering my hit substantially to that end. Any additional advice on your gearing philosophy is welcome. Would you prefer 1600 AP / 28% crit or 1800 AP / 24% crit?

Indeed. The percentage increases make a compelling case for an enhancement shaman in a melee group.

Whether you top some sort of "contribution" meter is pretty irrelevant, especially with all the synergistic effects that go on in a group/raid (ie how much of your UR uptime was from the crit buff you got from a feral druid etc etc).

I was looking at the same thing. That's some pretty high dps for lacking that much hit. I guess when you hit something, you hit it hard. Those 2 weapons are super nice as well. I may be rethinking my hit scenario after seeing those WWS reports and your armory.

I think being a rogue before may have had something to do with my +hit lust.

I've been running with an Enhance/Elemental build for a while now, and find it to be fairly effective overall. The 5 second cooldown on shocks especially (helpful on damage and fights where I have to help interrupt), and elemental devastation procs often enough to make the talents worthwhile - kicking my crit up to over 40% quite easily.

My main selling point for it is the ability to maintain a full shock rotation much without having to go to pots (beyond the occasionaly combat pot), on a faster cooldown, and for more damage.

The resto options are good, but you seem to have to put so many points in for that 3%. The totem range increase does help, but is usually not overly necessary with careful positioning.

I'm also trying to go for AP and crit over hit, based on Disquette and Pater's simulation results; my gear's not as good as Sebudai's though. One thing that's not indicated by just a cursory glance at his character sheet is the haste rating he's got on his gear; note that his 2.60 speed weapon is dropped to 2.53 without Flurry. If the calculations thus far in the thread are correct, Haste should be very powerful.

I'd put the higher DPS weapon in your MH and the lower DPS weapon in your OH. The speed differential doesn't matter so much, but in general I guess I'd rather have a slower weapon in the OH since it's getting fewer WF procs.

One thing that might explain some of the 15% gap on Sebudai's dps from yours is that they're swapping other shaman into his group for bloodlust. He gets it 3 times on that fight, lucky bastard.

Well, based on numbers found in this thread 1 CR = 2 AP. 4% crit is 88.4 CR so it would only take 176.8 AP to equal the benefit of 4% crit. Thus 200 AP is probably slightly better than 4% crit.

A few months ago I did some math based on my own WWS parses to assign a weighting to each stat. This is when I first discovered that +hit was overvalued, and that crit and attack power are normally a better use of item budget for us. The weightings I came up with a few months ago are very close to what you will find in this thread, and since these guys are probably better at math than I am, I just use theirs.

1 CR = 1.43 HR = 2 AP. Decide how much you value stamina in comparison to those three stats and it will be very easy for you to figure out which items are upgrades for you.

Honestly it's best to not think in terms of stacking one stat. All three of these stats are good for us, and they all depend on eachother. You want all three of them, and what is important is the quantities involved. Yes, one of them might be the 'superior' use of item budget, but it's not like we get to design our own items. We have to use what Blizzard gives us. My hit rating isn't intentionally low because I think +hit sucks, that's just how it worked out for me by following the above stat weightings.

The randomness of drops had an impact aswell because I don't hold out for the statistically best upgrade. If an item is an upgrade, I'm sending on it, regardless of if there is a bigger upgrade out there.

Anyway, yeah we switch our Bloodlusts around like that a lot. Basically whoever benefits the most from it on any given encounter is going to get most, if not all of the Bloodlusts. Also, I've picked up quite a few upgrades very recently(bracer, ring, cloak and breastplate off the top of my head), so the gear in my armory profile is better than what I was using for those WWS parses I linked.

While I am leveling my Shaman (53 now) -- any comment on the utility of Figurine - Golden Hare (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=21756)? -- a lot of Draenei Shaman are also going to be JC alts. Has anyone measured the passive runspeed of the trinket vs the boot enchant? (I'll do it tonight if not) I have some other random JC trinkets but nothing special yet, I think all good trinket drops are BRD and higher. +8 AP is the best "offensive" trinket thus far, and based on the math in those linked threads I think run speed trinket might be better than +8AP.

(I'll move this somewhere if it's appropriate, I just couldn't find a better place)

It provides the same bonus as any talent, metagem or enchant does - +8% running speed.

So it's just fine while leveling JC, having a third escape option beside stoneclaw + spirit wolf and [Nifty Stopwatch]. But it's not really better then putting Enchant Boots - Minor Speed on your feet or using [Defiler's Mail Greaves] (of any level).

But there are several trinkets, i would prefer over it:
Tidal Charm http://www.wowhead.com/?item=1404
Figurine - Truesilver Boar http://www.wowhead.com/?item=21763 (not because of the AP, but the boar is really strong for this level)
Rune of the Guard Captain - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=19120 (Horde)
Lifestone - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=833
Linken's Boomerang - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11905#00zc
Hand of Justice - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=11815

How would you value Haste Rating compared to CR/AP/HR - assuming your weaponspeed will remain over 1.5 with BL and flurry?

Probably something like 1 CR = 1.43 HR = 2 AP = 1 Haste Rating. According to math posted earlier in this thread it should actually only take 0.9 haste rating to equal the benefit of 2 AP/1 CR/1.43 HR, so I'm rounding up a little.

Hey Tornhoof, GREAT WORK on setting up the filters! There's only one problem...when I import my armory profile, and lock the items and do an optimization for gems (your v12 did seem to indicate that different gems were more useful depending on gear)...the entire program crashes and has to be restarted. Any idea whats causing this?

You currently can not optimize Gems only, you shouldn't take the Gems too serious either, since they are only optimized locally (for each item individually), not globally for all the items combined.

Few discussions I'd like to see:

Metagem choice?
Haste value as a stat?
T5 bonus VS T6 bonus?
2.7MH/2.7OH vs 2.7MH/2.8OH
+4STR/+4CR better than +8HIT at wich +hit threshold?
Tsunami Talisman VS Ashtongue Talisman

I'm sure you already know the answer to at least 3 of those questions by this point in the discussion.

Metagem - generally accepted as 3% Crit Dmg > Haste effect > soul shard gem > stam/stun resist

I believe we are treating haste as a 0.9 or 1.0 weight on stats.

The tiered bonuses I can't really speak of since I'm not up to that point yet, although the T5 2pc certainly has value for a player who plays to the hybrid/support style, less value to those who want to be a rogue in mail.

There is no detrimental effect that anyone is aware of from having an OH slower than the MH to the Windfury cycle, the only downside is that you lose the "bugged" flurry effect from having the same MH/OH speeds.

Str/Crit gems are always better than +8 Hit. No shaman should ever be using +8 Hit gems unless for some silly reason they chose not to grab the +9% Hit from talents.

The Ashtongue trinket was shown in the Itemization thread to have less AP bonus over time than the Bloodlust brooch did, so the Tsunami Talisman would likely be the better choice.

a- As long as you happen to have 2 blue gems use Relentless Earthstorm Diamond, failing that Swift Skyfire.

b- One point of haste rating is worth about one point of strength (only 3 posts above yours).

c- T5 4piece is roghly 3-4% dps, T6 4piece is closer to 2%, though the gains from having 4 pieces of the superior tier 6 outweigh this.

d- Conclusions have been inconclusive.

e- The str/crit gem will ALWAYS be better for all levels of gear from zero hit rating to hit capped (unless youre not actually enh specced, just wanting to do some physical dps with your resto spec).

f- On a stand and deliver fight the Ashtongue Talisman looks like a 137AP which is far superior to the Tsunami Talisman. Edit:: or not. Depends on the uptime of the Tsunami AP buff, one proc every 70 seconds or more often would make the Tsunami better than the Ashtongue, any less would favour the Ashtongue (excuse my bad midnight maths).

edit:: Beaten by Malan.

Here's the original analysis done on the Ashtongue -
Its an upgrade over the Bloodlust Brooch, but you lose the control over when the proc occurs.

Please, check this:



http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/5...izationry2.jpg

If you detect any flaw, tell me.

I am on the same line of thought.
While it may be a boost, I cant see why I would ever be arsed to do it.

I am a non-totem weaver, but I tried it for Gruul last time (well for a little bit) just to see if it was as annoying as I thought it would be.

There was visible benefit (roughly judging by ktm), between the time I tried weaving threat/wf and the time that I just ran WF. However, dancing around the cave ins, trying to keep shocks going, and shatters, I gave this up after I hit my first Shamanic Rage. My mana was getting eaten up faster (No more 5s ticks), and I just wasn't comfortable with the mana levels I was sustaining, the delay on shocks due to GCD and the chaining effect that had on SS (when using SS to try to proc WF after wfcd).

The fight just felt more chaotic to me. Part of that was just, obviously, not having a bunch of experience twisting totems. The threat benefit was there, but I really only saw the Arms warrior get a real win from that, because early on in the fight she had some spikes. Overall, it wasn't something that I really think is a great tactic.

I get nervous if I get below 50% mana - I like to have a big reserve to spam heals on myself for when I inevitably pull something I shouldn't be pulling, and I am prone to throw heals at people to help out when I can.

I only use tranquil air on very threat sensitive fights. I find I'm not really ever threat capped except when I'm using shamanistic rage, bugged judgment of light (320 healing procs), and heroism at the same time, in which case my treat sometimes spikes on omen up above 1300 tps; a number that I'm obviously not capable of generating with damage alone.

I did use TA on void reaver last night with a great deal of success, I was able to go all out the entire fight and came close pulling aggro at the very end. We have our melee dps stay in the entire fight instead of stepping out to avoid poundings. My dps warrior did unfortunately die to aggro with less than a minute left in the fight.

EDIT: Took the question to a more appropriate thread.

I am sorry but since i made addon for collecting cooldowns i newer got it to proc faster then 50 seconds, and i raid a lot...

Well that's the official WoWHead.com data for it and it agrees with all of the other major data mining sites.

What is everyone's experience with Shrouding Potions? After pulling aggro on VR a couple weeks back one of the guild alchemists sent me a couple stacks and told me to stop dying. Using them for a week on Teron and such where I have a problem with coming close to the threat cap seemed to make a difference, but I didn't have any hard numbers on it. The single best time I've found to use them is in the first 20 or so seconds of a fight so you start at very low threat with a slightly higher ceiling to deal with WF's unpredictability.

As for my latest experiences, I was forced to twist TA/WF during the last 20% of our latest anetheron to bloodlust my group. I was pretty much capped, while my rogues and warriors were safely behind. Managed to keep DPSing through it coming very close to pulling aggro, and I probably would've without twisting it. I would never consider it for a long term solution, I felt really pressured by the GCD and watching Omen, enough so that it wouldn't be worth the marginal gains.

I posted these 2 macros in the totem thread, I use them all the time instead of shocking, as I'm there to make the whole group's dps better, not just my own.

MACRO 14 "G/WF" INV_Misc_QuestionMark
/castsequence reset=9/combat Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem, stopmacro;
END
MACRO 15 "TA/WF" INV_Misc_QuestionMark
/castsequence reset=9/combat Windfury Totem, Tranquil Air Totem, stopmacro;
END

http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=28548

-800 Threat, sadly it has a 2 minutes cooldown. Seems not worthy like all the trinkets excluding [Prism of Inner Calm] (if/when it's working as intended).

I wonder if anyone can help me with the following:
I usually time my Shamanistic Rage in combination with Lust for Battle (278 ap from Bloodlus brooch trinket) and Blood Fury (orc racial, 282 ap). Now Id like to get these three actions into a single macro but failed in typing the proper macro for it so far.
Anyone here can give the right Macro for that?

Note: The order of actions = Blood Fury -> Bloodlust Brooch -> Shamanistic Rage
Bloodlust Brooch is equipped in my first trinketslot.

Thnx!

the macro is

/stopcasting
/cast blood fury
/stopcasting
/use bloodlust brooch
/stopcasting
/cast shamanistic rage


you can use this same thing to insta trinket/em/ns/cl just use /stopcasting and use or cast whatever you want in order

Blood Fury starts gcd isnt it? this macro wont work.


i'd write something like this

/castsequence reset=15 blood fury, bloodlust brooch, shamanistic rage

mash 3 times

note: this will not work if something on cd...

another version will be

/use bloodlust brooch
/castrandom blood fury, shamanistic rage

again you need to mash it

No, the macro he gave DOES work, as trinkets afaik dont start the gbc
So /cast Blood Fury
/use Bloodlust Brooch
/cast Shamanistic Rage

Thnx for the help!

Does anyone have a good addon or suggestion how to notice that "Invigorated" has procced (instant heal, T5 2-set bonus). With all the raidbuffs beeing on (~15 total) its bit hard to notice, but really useful to top yourself or someone esle off without loosing more than a glc.

I believe you can customize Scrolling Combat Text to show specific gains always as for example message or critical, making it easier to spot. The readme shows alot of information about this and how to do it.

If you use SCT, find sct_event_config.lua and writhe in this line:
You need to enable custom events ingame:
/sct menu
find Animation/Misc. Options

Meh. My raid leader is now encouraging me to pull aggro and die so that I can just a get a threat wipe.

I find they key to low threat generation is well timed shamanistic rage and totem weaving with it, also dropping traq at the start of the fight for 1-2 mins also helps.

I've had decent results with just ragging on our tanks till their TPS improves.

While my raid leader doesn't encourage me to pull aggro and die, often times, on fights like VR its the only thing that can be done. Have to love the Shaman's Feign Death.

Also, up until now I haven't played around with totem weaving, I think I am going to mess around with the Windfury / Tranquil Air mix a bit and see if that helps out at all. Honestly I think the mana could be better spent some where else, but lower DPS is better the no DPS I suppose.

I used to have great problems with aggro as well of course, but I have to say, that after our recent nerf, our tanks are way ahead of me threat-wise. So if any of you is experiencing this kind of problem now, i'd suggest providing your tanks with link to some basic tanking mechanics forum (or some equip - I didn't believe Stigmata he has no threat problems at all on Maghteridon for example, but after our tanks got few items, its the same for me).

Of course things get nasty on Void Reaver for example, but Big5 combo (BoS, TA, Subtlety enchant, Fetish of the Sand Reaver and Prism of Inner Calm) still works like a charm and I can go full damage.

Theres no need to pull agro as an enhancement shaman fighting Void Reaver simply becouse that encounter isnt about enhancement shamans (or any meleeclass for that matter) maximising their dps - its about a raid surviving while doing a certain amount of stable, reasonable dps.
Threat rly isnt an issue any longer imo, except for a few fights (for example gruul, morogrim, magtheridon) where its there for a reason, namely preventing the fight from becoming even more easymode than it already is.
So for any encounter where you hit a threat-cap: just slow down your dps, its ok, its working as intended and theres no need for more of your dps to win the battle. The majority of current encounters however, does not suffer from any of these threat-issues - sadly enough they have other ways of capping our dps output to a level that is fitting for our role as support-dps.

I think out of our current killable bosses, Void Reaver is the only one I have any real difficulty with threat. While I can stay alive through 75% of the fight, the last 25% or so I usually start capping out and its harder for the tanks to push past me, not impossible, just harder. Usually at the 25% mark I either remove the Windfury enchants from my weapons or die.

As for fights like Morogrim and Magtheridon, I never have problems with threat, ever. I can push my dps to its max and don't have problems. Of course at the moment my weapons are a bit on the fast side, but even once I have the slower weapons I don't think it will be a problem. We have some pretty amazing tanks.

One thing I had completely forgot about, is the Subtlety enchant to cloak, going to have to get that.

I've glared through this whole thread, but I couldnt find any post(Maybe I'm just too tired for this at the moment) about 4p Gladiator gear(Mostly s2)?

(4) Set: Reduces the cooldown of your Stormstrike ability by 1 sec.

Wouldnt this result in 10% more total SS damage done? Would this be worth considering for a raiding shaman to use?

Anyone that's in a better shape to try to calculate how much DPS this would end up as (Keeping in mind that this would result in raid nature damage getting a bit more boost aswell.)

Off the top of my head I'd say you'd risk losing more DPS than you'd gain since there's a lot of itemization points spent on Resilience, and the 2pc bonus is providing little to no benefit in a raid.

I'd figured as much about the 2p bonus, I guess it's really a matter of where you are in gear progression, (T6 would not be worth switching out, but maybe Karazhan epics?)

ok, I've read this thread and read some of the player feedback and I just want to confirm what I did was the best choice.

I used to have 1446 AP, 212 HR and 24.45% Crit.

Since then I have changed my gems around to reflect 1472 AP, 188 Hit and 25.99 Crit.


Was this the right choices? (basically changed the +8hit gems to the +4crit/+4str gems) or did I make a mistake at understanding priority stats?

Yes it was the right choice. I actually made the same change recently, I was sitting about 3 hit rating below the Hit Cap (25.6% I believe - with talents of course). Recently changed hit gems for 4crt/4str gems or 8 str gems.

I've had a few people on my server ask me about a certain Hit level they should be aiming for, generally tell them there isn't one but 170-180 is a nice number. Right around the 19-20% hit range. I can't say for sure this is the correct area, a lot of the enhancement shamans here raid with much less and are further progressed then I am, its just what I aim for and like.

You can use Power Auras to display an image on any part of the screen while the buff is active

Removed.

its been said wf on warrior/combat rogues are much much more beneficial than wrath of air. If you guys have a enhance sham, put them in the melee group if not i suggest you stay with melee for str and wf but switch out to another group just to drop mana tide.

Hi, i have browsed the 15 pages of this thread that i was linked and i am finding it Very informative. Thanks for all the hard work you fellas have done with this theory crafting and i am hoping it will help me more in the future.

Although before reading this thread i think i have made some bad choices in the way of gear.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/ch...issan&n=Tilley

If some one could take a browse over that and tell me where i should improve although i am pretty sure i know where, for example. 1.5 offhand is a bad idea and i will work for the 2.6 speed offhand. I replaced some gems with +8 str over +16 ap but kept some of the major ones like +20 AP because by my calculations it was better then +8 str. I have done this with a few gem slots, Also my trinkets need replacing but i think they are the main issues.

Any advice would be much appreciated and any item recommendations that are easily obtainable would also be much appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

Have you tried my addon?

Your talent tree is a mess. You didn't pick up Unleashed Rage which means you are now a DW DPS shaman that offers little to a group over a resto shaman except that you still can't heal worth a damn because you don't have the deep Resto talents. You need to at a minimum pick up Unleashed Rage. I'd recommend dropping 2H Weapons and Healing Way and probably NS to make up the points you need for that. I can't even fathom raiding without Shamanistic Rage so I'm not sure how you're getting along without it.

Why is the Violet Eye badge the best trinket that you have for that slot? You didn't pick up the Bladefist trinket at least from Hellfire Peninsula?

+150 Health to Chest is a Tank enchant. You need to use +6 Stats instead.

Your weapon enchants are horrid - I'm hoping those are only because you're working on the mats for some real enchants.

Adding to the above I'd look at switching up your offhand to a slow 2.6 speed weapon. You're in around the same boat as me right now having a nice high offhand DPS wep that's too fast. Slow down that offhand so you can stop eating your WF procs. It looks like you do a bit of PVP so I recommend picking up an arena one-hand wep. You'll probably do much closer to rogue DPS with just that.

I've only been enhance for 2 weeks now and my DPS is sorely lacking because of the wep in particular. It's really painful to see WF proc for around 2.5k-3k damage on main hand and a weak 1k-1.5k on offhand. And to see it many times over because of the speed is just that much worse.

Another thing is try gemming up your hit rating. AP is important only if you're actually connecting with your target. Pick up that hit rating to at least 150 through gems if you can and add some AP/crit after you hit that cap. It helped me a LOT.

During Karazhan raid's i seem to be in the top 3 of the DPS at all times against opponents that out gear me by a mile. I am currently testing some DPS theory's in blasted lands on some mobs and i am hoping to pick up the PvP 1 hander before the Arena 1 hander to confirm these theory's.

And a reply to the above post, I was informed by several raiders that its mandatory to have 8,000 health unbuffed which was my goal. Also the weapon enchants were for free i was helping someone level up while i get my mongoose. My talent tree is such a mess becouse im still required to heal in gruuls where as i DPS in Karazhan so its kind of a mix and match situation at the moment.

You need to read a bit more of the testing presented in this thread regarding this.

I have read that +8 STR Is the most beneficial gem so when i could i tried adding that to my Armour.

Running a test on some mobs in the outland using a DPS meter addon i discovered i did over a 70 second fight.

Gladiator's Left Ripper
Binds when picked up
Off Hand Fist Weapon
95 - 178 Damage Speed 1.50
(91.0 damage per second)
+21 Stamina
Durability 75 / 75
Requires Level 70
Equip: Improves hit rating by 9.
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 15.
Equip: Improves your resilience rating by 10.
Equip: Increases attack power by 28.

I sustained 919 DPS over the fight.

and with

Colossal War Axe of Power
Binds when equipped
One-Hand Axe
94 - 176 Damage Speed 2.60
(51.9 damage per second)
+38 Attack Power
Durability 75 / 75
Requires Level 63

I sustained 929 DPS.

All the variables used were the same each fight finishing in exactly 70 seconds.

Disappointing that i wasted my arena points on this weapon before i considered the mechanics of a shaman.

Also i do not have any solid math on the situation however, I noticed that i did roughly 20-40 more DPS on each fight by using stormstrike whenever the Windfury cool down was up instead of just button mashing it.

Just a thought, I would have a discussion with your Raid Leader and officers about your roll in raids. If they are so short on healers that they need to make an Enhancement shaman heal they need to do something about it.

I personally will carry my healing gear around and if they are wiping on something because we are short just a little extra healing I will help out, but I do nothing more then throw an occasional small heal at someone if I see them low most of the time. Using that Hybrid spec, you suck as both a support healer and the support dps roll your suppose to fall into as an Enhancement.

You may be able to put out some great numbers for your own DPS, but not taking Unleashed Rage is just silly, not to mention Shamanistic Rage. Both those talents are pure gold for us, the first one being pure gold for the melee classes in your group.

As for the gems, Inscribed Noble Topaz is decent as well.

Edit: And your an Orc, get some Axes!

After looking over all this, there is some really great information here. What I am curious to see is some different ideas from people as to the "perfect" pve gear set up from all available gear. Rank maybe your top 2 items in each slot.

Talking all the way threw BT and HS. I'm sure people have a lot of different ideas and everyone says that you need x amount of hit, crit, ap. But how about compiling it all in a full set, make the gear work to actually achieve those perfect stats. Personally why my goals are is 1900ap, 29%crit and between 180-220 hit. ATM I'm sacrificing hit for strength and crit (also waiting on a decent offhand. Will most likely pick up the MerGlad mace on tuesday).

Not really. I have around 7k unbuffed and have no trouble, and there are shaman with less than that who raid just fine. Now as I understand it there are some fights in Black Temple that require everyone in the raid to have 9k health minimum, but looking at your gear right now you don't need to be so worried about that.

Your guild is doing no good by having you split your talents so badly between Resto and Enhance. You'd be better off going full Resto if you aren't picking up Unleashed Rage.

I'm sure the best weapon to use in main hand and offhand is Syphon of the Nathrezim. There was an "Enhancement shaman lootzor" link somewhere to see the best 5 items in each slot.

Thanks for all the great advice i guess its one of those. I am enhancement or i am not raiding situations.. I will begin warming the bench

Here's the top 10 items in each slot.
http://www.lootzor.com/index.php?c=7...u1hedu.7heeu.5

I'm amazed of how many people reply to this post without reading the OP, almost all the info is right there.

Never said I didn't read this entire post and I've seen lootzor. Thats a pretty easy answer for what I asked. I for one am not going to punch in some numbers into a program and blindly take what it says. Sure that program may help a bit, but really take a look at some of that gear.

.. we have .. what's wrong with it?

I don't think lootzor has any hidden agenda, it just scores items based on the stat values you give it. If there's something lacking in the gear that scores well, you need to look at what you were asking for and adjust your criteria accordingly.

But you'll ask us and blindly take what we say? I'm not sure what the difference is, especially since a lot of guys will simply say "here's the lootzor values I use".

No, I know what I want. I'm just curious what everyone else's top Items are. I don't see why this is causing an argument/discussion or confusion what I'm asking. Was hoping to start some sort of discussion as to x-item vs x-item and people's reasons for liking one thing over another. We aren't supposed to have all the exact same gear.

Yes, anything with a rating is added together to give a total % haste that comes from rating. Anything that has a flat % effect is applied on its own as a multiplier.

What about DST, does it have it's own buff icon etc, while still being haste rating? Is it added up with the passive haste rating, or applied on it's own?

I would love to see a model (or numbers) showing the perfect amount of passive haste along with with x2 mongoose, dragonstrike, and flurry to hit a 1.5 speed on the nose.

2.7/1.02/1.02/1.3 = 1.9962736/1.5 = 1.3308 = 347.39 rating, -212 for dragonstrike = 135 passive haste needed.

You then get 2.7/1.02/1.02/1.3/1.3305 = 1.5004 speed.

valestalker + mukoa + 2x band of devastation = 36+37+31+31 = 135 passive haste, its almost like its planned :P

Assuming haste is handled the way Khlysti described you would need 135 passive haste rating to hit almost exactly 1.5 with the items listed. It's really not useful to know though since you'd be optimizing your gear for a situation that will only happen rarely. Any compromises you made to reach that goal would almost certainly hurt your DPS overall.

I hit 1.5 pretty regularly in raids, I however do not have any of the passive haste items yet. Cataclysm flurry (1.35), 2x Mongoose(1.02, 1.02), Dragonstrike, and Drums of Battle(1.278) = 1.504.

Flurry and dragonstrike proc are not a rare occasion

Probability isn't a strong area for me and this is probably oversimplifying but given 80% uptime on flurry(pater's sim @ 30% crit) and 2ppm for dragonstrike(what I've observed in testing), the likelihood of both buffs being up at the same time is roughly 27%. Throw in 2 mongoose procs at 2ppm and you'll only spend about 7% of your time with all those buffs active.

These are pretty rough numbers though because I don't take into account buffs refreshing themselves or any changes to proc rates due to the extra haste. Still, the numbers should be in the ballpark and I'd maintain that optimizing your gear choices for a very small amount of time is not the best way to plan your upgrades. I know for myself I'll just pick the items that offer the best individual stats and try to make sure my average haste doesn't put me between 1.5 and 1.41.

The 2 ppm from dragonstrike doesn't seem right, I'm certain its up more than that. On a slightly different note, I had 8 back to back procs a while back, the druid tanking was like, why do you have a permanent sprint animation.

edit: after looking at some WWS it would seemt he proc rate may be below 2 ppm, this seems strange because I tend to look at my character screen alot during raids, to see weapon speed, ap and crit (just to see what it spikes too) And the weapon speed are often hovering around 1.5 or lower, which I dont think would be the case without the dragonstrike proc.

Another thought, does wws pick up a refresh of dragonstrike if i dont lose the buff?

No, it doesn't. It's really quite annoying for tracking Flurry uptime. Also, if you have a Dragonspine Trophy, the buff is called "Haste" as well, so it's quite hard to actually tell how often they proc.

2 PPM sounds okay to me, are you factoring in the fact that all those haste procs increases the chance for further haste procs?

Is there any addon to track the MH/OH weapon speed over time? Can someone do it?
I'm thinking about a simple addon that summarizes weapon speed data like this:
"Time spent in combat: 300 seconds
Weapon speed, seconds, % of time spent
2.6, 45, 15%
2.0, 240, 80%"
and so on...
I think it would help us a lot to get real tested data.

Going from [Fel Edged Battleaxe] to [High Warlord's Cleaver] in the OH added 136DPS for me on our last Tidewalker kill.
I've only received some minor upgrades and dumped some +hit for more crit and AP. Needless to say time spent reading here is time well spent!

WWS

WWS

Thanks to everyone contributing to this thread, keep it up!

Something seems odd with those logs.. In the first one you clocked in 22% white crit, while in the second you hit 38% white crits???

Same for other skills, WF went from 18% to 32% crit, while stormstrike seemed the most normal at 24% -> 28%.

Was your group setup radically different, or something? That seems like an awfully large difference in crit to chalk up to WoW RNG streaks.

The first one is the old one, and I had way more hit rating there then I'm using now. I think I was close to hit capped. I suppose that would lead to more white hits, and I had 2 rogues, warrior and a feral druid in my group on the last one. Compared to a warrior+3 rogues last attempt.

So okay, it wasn't only the OH weapon change, but I'm sure that contributed aswell!

Sorry to quote myself here, but I haven't seen any responses. I have been watching this very closely, and even with an elemental shaman in my group last night to eat up the SS buff, I'm still seeing this trinket's procs making up 2% of my damage (though Recount doesn't give me 1/10th of a %, so that's as detailed as I can tell).

On Netherspite, with the Elemental Shaman in the blue beam, I used a different trinket to give him the full SS buff, so I can see that making a difference as far as usefulness, but I still would like to see the difference.

Oh right sorry missed the vial completely. 35 Hit Rating valued at 35/1.44 = 24.30 AEP with some sort of value from the proc... unless you're starved for +Hit this has just really turned out to be a poor trinket for shaman.

__________________

Just noticed we're not using the same scales for the trinkets, to match up with the other ones I posted they would have values of:

DFT = 84
KotS = 92
Romulo's = 49 + proc. This might not be a terrible trinket after all. Assuming 2ppm which I think is a bit conservative with WF it would add on average 9.3dps. You could argue that is equivalent to 129ap, of course it doesn't synergize with our yellow damage(except for possibly stormstrike by a small amount) so it would roughly only add 1/2 the value of straight attack power. I would say a conservative estimate gives it an AEP of 113.5 which is about right for where it drops.

I understand the hit rating being low value (and I'm not hurting for HR at all), but if it's making up 2% of my damage, rounded up, simple math would say that this is at least a 2% increase in my damage output. I'm wondering how that compares to an item with an AEP of, say, 107 or 118.

Part of this is my ignorance, but I wouldn't think that 83 AEP (the difference between what the proc'd ability would have to get me vs. using the Abacus) would mean a 2% increase in my damage. Am I wrong? I could be, just asking.

Uh oh. Well that explains why I couldn't figure out how you had valued one of the haste trinkets. Can you check the first post real quick and make sure I didn't make any other slip ups?

__________________

They all look good.

Pure speculation on the Ashtongue talisman.
Behind the scenes stormstrike is likely implemented as the 2 swings and then any successful hit attempts to apply the stormstrike debuff.

If each of these affects is granted a 50% chance to apply the effect then you get...
- 5% of stormstrikes get dodged and result in nothing.
- 95% both swings hit, both swings apply stormstrike (does not stack.) This results in 4 coinflips to apply the buff.

4 coin flips = 15/16 = 93.75%
93.75% * 0.95(non dodges) = 89% proc rate which is our observed rate.


I am still 3 weeks out from the trinket but a simple way to test if this is what is happening is to have someone who has the trinket put on a 2 hander (or staff if they have no 2H talents) and go test the proc rate. If it works the way I am guessing a 2 hander should see a proc rate around 71%.

Our class is so weird.

More evidence that the itemization team is not working very closely with the mechanics team?

__________________

First off thanks for gathering all this up into one thread, it has helped me alot in dicideing what to do. I do however have a few questions.
First off, whats up with flurry?, I see alot of math here use flurry as 30%, but in game, while duelwielding, it is more around 23%. Is this some kind of tooltip bug I missed or am I just missing something?
In that regard that brings me to my current problem, after a long time of thinking it out I have dicided to choose the Drakefist over the Planar Edge. I can't seem to choose an offhand though, I ruled out the blue weapons as they are all faster then the drakefist but have less dps then the two crafted weapons, and the arena weapon should be an option next season but not this one. So that leaves me with the two crafted weapons. From a stat point I like the stats of the Fel Edged Axe better, I saw a post a while back that showed 2.7/2.2 and 2.7/2.4 have the same chance to steal wf's so the advantege of the Runic Hammer is it's 8.5~ more dmg to wf's and ss, I then ran into another peice of info, I hear the drakefist procs alot, and adding it's proc with flurry the runic hammer goes to 1.43speed, with mongoose it's still at 1.414 but a 2nd proc puts it at 1.38, compairing it to the fel edged which goes to 1.32 is this loss enough of a difference to make up for the 8.5~dmg loss to ss and wf's?, Also I seem to see don't use under speed 2.4 alot, is there a specific reason for that vaule or is it just a general good vaule to tell people to stay slow/slow?

Thanks for the help on Romulo's Poison. That is more what I was expecting. I'm going to try to test out Abacus versus it (IF THE ABACUS WOULD EVER FREAKING DROP!!!!) and I'll let you know what it shows.

I have a few more questions I'm hoping someone can answer:

- If I were to get Decapitator, would it increase my dps to use that and put my MG Cleaver in my OH, or should I stick to using MG Cleaver in my MH and use this green lvl 70 fist weapon in my OH (it's 2.6 speed, of course)?

- Tornhoof's calculations (50 crit vs. 100 AP vs. 50 hit rating) use a base of 25% crit chance, 2200 AP, and 22% hit chance. WHO HAS THESE STATS??? First off, I'm not sure how an enhancement shaman gets to 2200 AP, and secondly, it seems against your point right after that:
My question is, has there been any work done to see what a more equal distribution of stats would give for the benefit of each incremental point? Though I would have a hard time believing that AP could be UNDER-valued in that model, I would be very curious to see if these weightings were constant for every level of gearing.

- Ring Enchants: +2 weapon damage or +4 to all stats? The mats for +4 to all stats are INSANE for how small the buff is, and I'm not sure +2 weapon damage, with flurry, SS, and WF wouldn't add up to more over time. Any thoughts? With slow weapons preferred for Shaman, I would think that would especially de-value this enchant.

- What reliable tools can I use to judge my dps? How do you test it? I'm trying to test it using recount and SWS, but they give VASTLY different results, and they're not always different in the same direction (sometimes recount is higher, sometimes it's lower), so it's hard to judge which is right.

Thanks for the help, sorry for all the questions.

Flurry is a 30% attack speed increase, but the way attack speed increases work are like this: Weapon speed = Weapon Speed * 1/(100% + 30%). That's the same thing as multiplying by 0.769, which is why you're observing a 23.1% decrease in weapon speed.
Why would you rule out the blue offhands just for having less DPS? The first post of this thread goes into a lot of detail explaining that slow offhands are necessary, regardless of DPS. Anyway, your only realistic option besides blues is the Runic Hammer (again check main post). That said, there's absolutely no reason the arena weapon shouldn't be an option this season. At 300 points a week (easily attained by a mediocre 2v2 team or a horrible 5v5 team) you'll end up with the Cleaver or Pummeler in 9 weeks.

As you mentioned the HWL Cleaver...I'm really interested in how this does against a 71.x 2.6 blue offhand or the FEB. Mainly because I PvP now more than I used to to get either the epic lvl 60 or blue lvl 70 weapon, yielding FEB at the moment.
I don't really know which PvP weapon is better, though; arena offhand will still take a while to accomplish.
Especially as I've read among the official forums that HW Cleaver is supposed to be better than the S1 arena offhand...


/edit:
@ Ilmater: These values are raidbuffed and are in no way off. 380 BS, 220 BoM, 196 SoE, +10% UR and you will probably be over the said 2200 AP.

I'm just under 1500 AP unbuffed. Screenshot from last night's raid shows 2323 AP. (No flasks/potions.) My crit is ~25% unbuffed, my hit is lacking but is a lower priority than other stats.

My gear is far from good (nothing SSC/TKE yet) but my point is that its easy to get a lot of AP from raid buffs.

Do the math yourself, it's easy. (DPS of MG - DPS of Decap < 50% * (DPS of MG - DPS of green); you'll find the MG Cleaver goes thus goes in the OH by a wide margin.)
Plenty of shamans can hit those stats in raids. BoM is good for 220 AP untalented, MotW 28 AP untalented, SoE 200 AP talented, Battleshout 305 AP untalented... meaning you only need 1447 unbuffed AP to hit 2200 buffed, and that's without Kings or any elixirs/flasks/scrolls/food, and before Unleashed Rage (I believe that Tornhoof's calculation did not include UR in the 2200 figure). I hope this result also answers the rest of your questions on this point.
Our DPS varies highly from encounter to encounter based on random luck on crits and WF procs, whether we're behind the mob or not (and thus being parried/blocked), our buffs, and the level of the mob, so you should expect to see variance; SWS and Recount should both be relatively accurate but all in all I prefer a good WWS parse to either one.

Hi, this is my first post here, been reading awhile. I enjoy and learn from the posts. Unfortunately I have a long way to go gear wise to get where most of you guys are.

The question on ring enchants reminded me of a something I had searched for but not found regarding meta gems.


I have pre kara gear but DW fel edged battleaxes. AP is about 800 depending on where I am and what I am doing, crit about 20% to hit gear about 5%. So I am nowhere near where you guys are and my concerns are different but I hope to have those concerns in the future.

Anyway I figure I hit about 1 time a second in combat.

That means a ring enchant would be adding 2dps each or 4 dps for 2 rings. My meta gem is +3 damage and chance of stun. I looked but could not find information on the chance of stun on this site or information on the way the +damage on this gem compares to other meta gems.

If I recall correctly about 14 AP is equal to 1 dps. Each ring enchant is equivalent to 28 ap or 14 strength. The meta gem leaving aside the stun would be 42 AP or 21 str. This seems pretty strong to me but I have not seen anything about them.

I am an enchanterer but use the +spell damage since we have not been able to get that far into kara yet.

Ignore

Factor in food an an elixir or flask buff and you only need 1300 AP to reach 2200 in a raid, probably closer to 1100-1200 when Unleashed Rage and talented buffs are considered.

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

I would wager that most if not all groups have DPS warriors, certainly. Who is going to battle shout the rogues? (You have those, right?). Blessing of might is another hefty chunk. If you can only get one blessing, in general I would go with might. The exception being Hydross, lootreaver, and Leo, where salv would be a must. If you are pulling agro off your tank on things like mag, karathress, tidewalker, or lurker, I would take a serious look at your tank's threat generation before questioning yourself. (Or to make it a no brainer, use a druid.).

You can and should also pick up AP buffs from food (20 STR food) and a Flask, depending on what you are raiding. You can also keep in mind that your enchants are a place to make up for lacking stats. If you need more AP, get crusader. It procs like mad on a shaman, and double procs are quite frequent. I checked the WWS from the last morogrim I did with double crusader, and I show myself gaining Holy Strength 24 times during the fight. It could be slightly higher due to refreshing procs, but that still puts it at 3 PPM. (The fight was 8 minutes.) But, I use Crusader to make up for a slightly lower (1400 ish unbuffed) AP because I have higher crit from gear (About 30%), and because I'm cheap- I specced enhance for a few weeks since we were long on healers and short on DPS. If your stats are the other way around, get mongoose.

I use the dagger simply because the axe is the last weapon we kill whereas the dagger is generally the second. ( It's supposed to be the third but the rogues and I would rather kill the dagger than the healing mace.. >_> ) I've been really satisfied with my dps output with it. Although we're still learning the fight so I find myself throwing a ton of heals during the hectic transition from the weapons to the advisers so I lack the mana to dps at full.

Boy would I love to see the big numbers that axe could generate. Every once in a while I run around in raids with my Gorehowl out just to see big numbers, it puts a big smile on my face But that is for after we get the fight down pat.

If I am remembering the post from Stigmata correctly, he said he tried out the two hander, but that he lost at least 400+ dps using it compared to DWing.

Yeah, Rob's post answers that question. Sorry, I completely forgot about SoE and UR, and was just looking at character sheet AP. Ridiculous. That's why I don't figure these things out for myself... keep missing things. :P
No, it's not that easy at all... since they're the same speed, the MH should proc WF much more often, and thus its dps becomes favored. Then you have to factor in the gain from SS. I'll try to do this on my own:

169 avg dmg of green OH attack
253.5 avg dmg of MG Cleaver attack
239.5 avg dmg of Decap attack

So every SS, that's:

253.5 + 169/2 = 338
239.5 + 253.5/2 = 366.25
28.25/10 = 2.8 increased dps on SS

Increase from MG Cleaver in OH, Decap in MH: 10.85 flat dps, * some increase for flurry.

Now, given that the MH procs WF more often, that's 28 more damage every WF proc (14 average damage difference every hit, x2 hits). Since it can't possibly proc more than once every 3 seconds (obviously that's over-rated), that is less than 10 dps increase, so you're right, I'd say there's no way it could be better than Cleaver/green combo.

But I was also kind of curious how close it was, because if it's a couple of dps difference (not scalable), then I'll let someone else have it. Also, I'm wondering if I'm accounting for everything (so many freaking procs on chance with shaman that I always for get things) so I can make the same calculation for a 71.7 dps OH. Assuming my math was right above, then you would even prefer Decap/Cleaver to Cleaver/Harvester. The math comes out to 1.9 dps increase from SS, 7.5 dps from the greater added dps, and I doubt the 28 extra damage from every WF proc on the MH (and lower dps from every WF proc on the OH which I left out above), it's still a good dps increase.

So unless I missed the Decap/Cleaver combination would be prefereable to anything short of two Cleavers.
After adding everything out and factoring UR, I realize where I missed the ball. I was assuming that the calculation was using pre-UR calcs, and that would make a big difference.
I keep hearing about WWS... I'll get it tonight. Hope I can figure out how to view its results.

Correct, I dont use the 2 hander other than for about 1 or 2 mionutes for the run speed buff while pinging about between adds/weapons (and to see 10k instant damage is always amusing.)

With the bow debuff and DW'ing the damage output is insane, waiting for 2+ seconds between attacks is horrible in my opinion, so using the 2 hander is not an option.

If the equilibrium values include raid buffs, wouldn't that dramatically increase the value of hit relative to AP/crit? Getting over 2200 AP and 27% crit with consumables, iBS, LotP, and BoM is easy, but there's not a single class or potion that can give me more hit. No matter how I change up my gear, with a DPS warrior and a feral druid in my group I'm over equilibrium on AP and crit, and at least slightly under on hit.

The equilibrium values suggest that I should be worried most about hit for maximum raid-buffed DPS, but anecdotal evidence from other shamans on this board says otherwhise. Am I missing something?

You don't need hit to increase your rage generation, you will only need hit to have more white damage/windfury proccs.
That are big differences from warrior (rage) and rogue (combat potency talent) points of view. It might only be more important if you can achieve a dragonspine trophy.

All three stats scale well, but attackpower gives you the best reward (check the linked thread for further details and formulas) at this certain point. You will hit over 9/10 attacks with 22% hit (including 5% dodge), but crit will help you further with flurry uptime and attackpower with manaregen from your shamanistic rage talent.

To the 2200 ap discussion, Malan added some explanation, maybe you should reread posting #1 from time to time or have a quick look at this quotation for finally clarification:

They don't suggest you should be worried about Hit at all, the complete opposite in fact.

Oh and as for the quote above, I only just added that this afternoon after this page of discussion came up.

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

Ah, just read your last edit was yesterday, didn't realised it's right after midnight here.

But i've got two another questions:
1. Doesn't that difference between hwl cleaver and feb does result only from the non-existing speed normalisation on several instant attacks, does it?

138-207 dmg (172 avg) High Warlord Cleaver
128-239 dmg (183 avg) Fel Edged Battleaxe

2. I'm confused about that (maybe i missed the discussion in this or the other thread about it?) passage:
Should'nt we use them on the offhand instead of the mainhand? The slower your offhand is, the smaller is the chance to consume your mainhand windfury charge. The upgrade to a [Rising Tide] is only 2 dps, but your mainhand should only have 2.6 (arena) or 2.7 (blacksmith) speed. Or is this only true for the procc of [Syphon of the Nathrezim] and you missed out the axe?

If Decap MH + Cleaver OH is better on white DPS it will also always be favored for yellow DPS -- there's no reason why the MH will proc WF much more often -- you said yourself that they're the same speed. Similarly, if Decap MH + Cleaver OH is a bigger pair of white swings than Cleaver MH + Green OH, it will always be a bigger pair of yellow swings (Stormstrike). See why it's easy now?
They are not "equilibrium" values, they are values at which the formula 1 CR = 1 STR = 2 AP = 1.43 HR = 0.9 HasteRating holds true. So, no, hit is not dramatically increased in value relative to AP/crit.

As Malan said, the jury's still out -- nobody's yet developed a convincing closed-form model, and nobody's tested this in practice. If you'd like to simulate this, you can download the Java sim and try it yourself.

I really need a better way of wording that whole "equilibrium" bit, I don't think the point of the values is really explained very well.

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

Mmm maybe Im missing out on something here, but wouldnt 2 x Syphon of the Nathrezim - Items - World of Warcraft be the weapon combination to go for in BT content, outperforming the combo with Rising Tide - Items - World of Warcraft as mh?

I assume you're using the dagger offhand then?

The axe has better stats in my opinion (allmost 2% hit and a bunch of stamina), which you might also want to weight into your comparison. For you, as an orc shaman, your racial with +5 axe weapon skill comes into account, to.
It should really depend on the ppm of the mace weapon procc (it's only 120 damage per applying, not counting resists).
We could really need some data mining from Stigmata, Sebudai or another fast progressing shaman or fury warrrior here. Eg can two proccs stack like lifesteal enchant?

The mace should be harder to get (rogues could also want it, but the axe it not really interesting for hunters).

I guess, your upgrade from an arena weapon to the axe on your mainhand might be noticeable, but shouldn't be a clear jump. "Upgrading" from a blacksmith weapon to the axe could be a downgrade in the worst case (losing 0.1 attack speed). But i think, from our knowledge point nowadays, the mace should allways be superior in your offhand then the axe and any other choice do.

Is a combination of 2.8/2.8 really better then 2.6/2.8 regarding stealing wf proccs from your mainhand will need further ingame testing (or java simulations, but those data should be taken carefully).
Chosing between weapons with same statpoints would be an easy decision (the slower one of course!), but in this special situation, it will really depend on the mace procc.

Sorry if this has been posted already, but has an analysis of the Crystalforged Trinket been done? Crystalforged Trinket - Items - World of Warcraft

Who wants to start a petition to change the 1h sword into a mace :P

Do a search instead of being sorry :P [Shaman] Itemizing Enhancement at 70

Also, something amusing but completely unrelated: last Lurker, my crit rate for white damage and Windfury were 33% and 32%. For Stormstrike it was 18%.

No, my dagger skill is like 320ish so I stick with my normal weapons.

Getting the weapon first would be nice :p

Been in the same boat with deciding between 2x syphon, or a rising tide mh with syphon oh. I attempted to run the sim a little while ago to help decide, here are the results I got:

------------------------------------ ESCS -------- RISING TIDE 2.6 and SYPHON 2.8
-- INPUT DATA --
Player AP=2400, H=28.0%, C=30.0%, Haste=0.0%. SScooldown=10.0s
Player Weapons: MH=208-313/2.6s, OH=196-365/2.8s
Monster Level=73, Armor Mitigation=30.0%
Combat duration: 360000 seconds

-- SWING OUTPUT DATA --
MH Wh: Swings=169292 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.4%), G=(25.0%), C=(29.9%), H=(38.6%)
OH Wh: Swings=156901 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.5%), G=(24.9%), C=(30.0%), H=(38.6%)
MH WF: Swings= 70228 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.4%), G=(never), C=(29.8%), H=(63.8%)
OH WF: Swings= 58632 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.7%), G=(never), C=(30.0%), H=(63.3%)
MH SS: Swings= 35992 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.4%), G=(never), C=(29.8%), H=(63.8%)
OH SS: Swings= 33702 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.3%), G=(never), C=(30.0%), H=(63.7%)

-- DAMAGE OUTPUT DATA: 327636547 Total --
MH Wh: Dmg=(35.0%) | G=(16%)[378-464], C=(51%)[1007-1237], H=(33%)[503-619]
OH Wh: Dmg=(17.5%) | G=(16%)[195-258], C=(51%)[521-688], H=(33%)[260- 344]
MH WF: Dmg=(23.9%) | G=(never), C=(48%)[1600-1922], H=(52%)[800-961]
OH WF: Dmg=(11.9%) | G=(never), C=(49%)[934-1167], H=(51%)[467-584]
MH SS: Dmg=(07.8%) | G=(never), C=(48%)[1007-1237], H=(52%)[503-619]
OH SS: Dmg=(04.0%) | G=(never), C=(48%)[521-688], H=(52%)[260-344]

Flurried white swings: MH=80.5%, OH=80.4%

DPS = 910.1

------------------------------------ ESCS ------ AND SYPHON 2.8 with SYPHON 2.8
-- INPUT DATA --
Player AP=2400, H=28.0%, C=30.0%, Haste=0.0%. SScooldown=10.0s
Player Weapons: MH=196-365/2.8s, OH=196-365/2.8s
Monster Level=73, Armor Mitigation=30.0%
Combat duration: 360000 seconds

-- SWING OUTPUT DATA --
MH Wh: Swings=161203 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.6%), G=(24.9%), C=(30.0%), H=(38.5%)
OH Wh: Swings=161203 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.5%), G=(24.9%), C=(30.1%), H=(38.5%)
MH WF: Swings= 64608 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.6%), G=(never), C=(30.1%), H=(63.3%)
OH WF: Swings= 60434 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.3%), G=(never), C=(29.8%), H=(63.8%)
MH SS: Swings= 35992 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.3%), G=(never), C=(30.3%), H=(63.4%)
OH SS: Swings= 33719 | M=(0.0%), D=(6.4%), G=(never), C=(29.9%), H=(63.7%)

-- DAMAGE OUTPUT DATA: 334966267 Total --
MH Wh: Dmg=(35.1%) | G=(16%)[391-516], C=(51%)[1041-1375], H=(33%)[521-688]
OH Wh: Dmg=(17.6%) | G=(16%)[196-258], C=(51%)[521-688], H=(33%)[260- 344]
MH WF: Dmg=(23.2%) | G=(never), C=(49%)[1664-2130], H=(51%)[831-1065]
OH WF: Dmg=(12.0%) | G=(never), C=(48%)[934-1167], H=(52%)[467-584]
MH SS: Dmg=(08.3%) | G=(never), C=(49%)[1042-1375], H=(51%)[521-688]
OH SS: Dmg=(03.9%) | G=(never), C=(48%)[521-688], H=(52%)[260-344]

Flurried white swings: MH=88.9%, OH=88.9%

DPS = 930.5
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obviously this doesn't take in to account the syphon's proc but at least from this data syphon came out above regardless.

Disquette et al - is it possible to modify these simulations to model the 2 stormstrike methods? (hit when lit vs save till after WF CD)

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

Edit: Removed some unsupportable data.

Long story short though you do gain dps by waiting for the cooldown to fade.

Which sim used is irrelvant I am sure they all have code like this

If (ssCD < ssDelay) // ssDelay usually 10.0, ssCD is time since last ss.
{
//reset ssCD
//do the swings.
}

turn this into
if (ssCD < ssDelay)
{
if (bWfCd == false) // add this line with whatever var they are using to track the wfcd.
{
//reset cd
// do the swings
}
}

and rerun the sims. Then everyone can use whatever sim they prefer. I think they would all show a greater than 1% gain just by waiting for the cooldown to expire every time.

I've lost a bit of steam... the problem with flurry makes me think that it's a pointless exercise. Until I have a good model for that, I'm pretty much disgusted with the whole thing.

I only like models where I can test game against reality and say "look, they match!"

edit - Berg - if you have a whole armory, including talents, how well does your sim match actual dps tests? If you know something I don't, I'm all ears.

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----- sig ---------------
Discoepfeand - rogue
Disquette - shaman

I'm looking for a few opinions here. There has been an argument between a few members in my guild over twisting GoA and WF totems or keeping WF down in melee heavy groups. One side says the DPS gained from buffing the party by twisting overweighs the gains of a full shock rotation and holding SS for the WF cooldown, the other side says the opposite is more total DPS. I'm leaning more towards a full shock rotation & waiting for the WF cooldown. Anyone dug deep into this?

I tried this out using some of the macros people had posted last week. I wasn't even in combat, just sitting in Shattrath dropping totems. I gave it about 5 minutes of use before I concluded that:
- it requires a lot of concentration on a button in your UI instead of whats going on the game world, which is probably a lot more important
- it used a hell of a lot of mana which means no emergency healing
- watching the WF buff on my weapon I noticed that unless you drop the WF totem earlier than the 9 seconds it lasts on the weapon that you ran the risk of the buff running off someone and missing an opportunity for a proc while you were refreshing the totem. If you're late on the drop, or have a decent amount of latency, you could have this happen quite frequently.

I didn't give it a lot of testing time, and didn't even try it in combat, but to me it personally felt incredibly clunky and took my attention away from anything other than the macro. Not something I'll be doing in a raid.

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

It is entirely possible to have 100% WF uptime and ~90% GoA uptime if your macro is bound with stormstrike (cast sequence SS - WF - GoA, spammed heavily). Use WF rank 1 if you can't sustain a higher rank, the benefit of simultaneous GoA is greater than the increase in AP on only WF procs, especially for yourself and if you have a feral druid DPSing in your group (with 34.44% unbuffed crit, 55+% crit is attainable for me with double goose, LoTP, and GoA).

If you check my armory, note that I have a Shattrath flask on but it is not affecting my stats (I'm logged outside of Hyjal/BT/TK/SSC).

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Male Enhancement.

So do people actually try this in raids? I can't imagine trying to do totem twisting on any encounters that require decent mobility and interrupting from shocks. If anyone has had success with it, I'd like to know.

I've been totem cycling during raids, it's quite simple with castsequence macro (/castsequence reset=10, Stormstrike, Windfury Totem, Grace of Air Totem). Sustaining shocks is nearly impossible unless you get JoW on your target. You can do a shock once per "rotation" of totems until you've used your first rage, then you have to stick to stormstrike and totems almost exclusively, the 2 minutes feels like an eternity when you're dropping mana that fast. I would definitely say it's worth it to totem cycle, it's a definite dps loss (~6% if you count the GoA you are gaining) but the additional agility for your group outweighs your small margin of dps loss.

It is only really effective in situations where the following parameters are met:

1. You aren't moving, and if you are, it isn't very far.
2. You have extremely high DPS rogues in your group.
3. You need to burn something down.
4. The fight doesn't punish you for having low mana.

I run the SS-WF-GoA macro on Teron Gorefiend where, unless I get ghosted, my job is to stand there and DPS. WWS for Teron in which no DPS classes had to kill constructs.

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Male Enhancement.

Glad to read this because i was planning to make Drakefist MH and S2(2.6) axe OH. It is very hard to think of putting the higher DPS weapon in my OH vs the T2 drakemaw hammer in your MH. Shaman are in the same position hunters were before and somewhat still slower is just always better.

Although it took a bit getting used to, totemweaving has become second nature to me. I totemweave WF & GoA all the time now even in 5 mans. I have the macro set up independent of my SS however and I like it that way. I've also found weaving WF & TA helpful when beginning a fight or to help lower the TPS of my group if they're getting too high.

Although I have a general idea of when I need to recycle the totems, I'm going to try and set up a custom timer using the Ace2 mod Quartz. I already use it as a castbar and GCD timer.

Depending on the fight, I'm also finding that I need to be more conservative with my shocks but most of the time, a SR + mana pot is enough to keep me going. Talents to reduce mana cost on totems is a must (Mental quickness & Totemic Focus). My biggest concern right now is sometimes the totem cycling coincides exactly with my SS CD and GCD screws me into either delaying my SS or delaying the totem cycle. I wish totems were on a seperate GCD or had no GCD at all.

I hope blizzard doesn't catch wind of this and nerf it. They put WF and GoA on the same totem for a reason.

I was going to post this exact sentiment earlier but figured I'd be accused of beating a dead horse. They really cannot have intended people to do this type of totem stacking given how the totem elements work.

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

Well, it's a possible mechanics bug that works in the favor of the player, so we can expect a fix sooner rather than later probably.

I have been toying around with using the Totem Twisting method for my 2 rogue, 1 arms, feral druid group, and they love it. Malan, in order to not have WF expire change the text in the Macro that was posted here to "reset=8" instead of the default 9 that was originally listed in the post.

I did the same trials in Shat that you mentioned and that was an issue that I noticed as well. It really does not take as much concentration to Twist as you think. You get into a mindset after about a week and it becomes natural about knowing when you click the Twisting Macro twice to relay the totems.

I ussually run with 8.7k Mana buffed, and in order to sustain this the order I use is WF->GoA -> SS -> FS. By using Flame Shock it lowers the mana requirement cause it is only required every 12 seconds. If I get down to 1/4 mana and have no UR or Pot timer up, I just resort to the totem twist and SS until one timer comes up. If you can convince your paladins to keep JoW up on the Mob, mana will almost never be an issue.

I was using a SS->WF->GoA cycle and that was just not working for me since it was dependent on getting that SS off before the rest of the cycle. I think I'll try switching to a WF->GoA->SS cycle, or WF->SS->GoA. Overall tho, I hate doing it. I find it hard to focus on what's going on around me when I'm stressing over making sure the totems go down when they have to. I'm mostly hoping it gets "fixed" so I don't feel guilty for not doing it.

Where would I go about finding the simulator to check what items optimize my dps?

The first post of this very thread.

Im curious as to peoples thoughts on the effect of using a higher dps, fast weapon with another weapon buff in the offhand.

At some point, Slow/Fast(Purple) WF/FT has to be better than Slow/Slow(green) WF/WF.

I know the OP says to move to an AH green rather than an epic dagger, but I find it hard to believe that the dps difference cant be made up by sheer DPS on the offhand with Flametongue helping as well. Not to mention the MH will now be unencumbered by off hand WFs...

I think we are starting to get to the point of going in endless circles with this post. There are only so many times that someone can do the math on fast offhands with our horrible imbues like FT and rockbiter- It's already been tested in the numerous other threads that gave birth to this one, and the answer is still WF/WF with slow weapons.

I think people who say "I use Flametongue because my dagger is fast!" don't really understand how Flametongue works.

Thank you all for a sane discussion and an excellent collection of valuable enhancement shaman information.

After reading 30 pages, I have noticed that there is no mention of down shifting. Twisting is mentioned (TA & WF), but I think down shifting is also a useful tactic instead of dying to wipe aggro.

Down shifting - Changing weapons/items in the main hand, off hand, or both so as to achieve a reduction in aggro, but not lose the benefits of buffs from talent and item procs.

An example is to equip [Blackout Truncheon] in your off hand to dramatically decrease your DPS while still keeping UR and totems down for the group. Not only does it seem like a more realistic solution than suicide-ankh, it maintains the synergy of the raid and allows you to shed hate. Granted, it is at the cost of personal DPS, but you can just as easily up shift back to the slow offhand when your aggro cools off.

I realize this is a tactic and not a further exploration or clarification of mechanics or itemization, but it is a tactic only possible by the existence of many of the mechanics that you have theorized and tested.

I downloaded Pater's java sim, and changed the lines that fired off SS to the following:

Then I made a SPAM_SS constant, which can be true or false. If it's true, it SS's whenever it's lit. If it's false, it waits until WF is off cooldown.

I used the standard stats that come with the Java sim, and the standard equipment (gladiator OH, Decapitator MH). All I changed was the SS latency to 10.5 for a little more realism.

I ran a few sims, and my results were:

Spamming SS whenever it's lit: Avg DPS = 772
Waiting on SS until WF is off cooldown: Avg DPS = 791

So, according to Pater's sim (which, by the way, is pretty sweet), waiting for WF to be up before firing SS seems to be a decent DPS increase. Would be interesting to see if this is true in real life as well.

__________________
The world can't end today because it's tomorrow in Australia

There is probably only 1 fight that I can think of where I'd actually need to do this - void reaver. In other cases, our tank has enough TPS where I will never catch up to him. And on void reaver, its a 100% agro wipe to battle anhk so you can continue to go full steam on it.

If you need to drop aggro and "shaman vanish" isn't a reasonable option, you're much better off to stop shocking than to reduce your melee DPS, due to the 15% threat reduction from Spirit Weapons. Ankhing up is quite reasonable on Void Reaver which is really the only fight where this is a severe problem. (Hydross is very aggro-sensitive too, but that's because of the constant drops... I don't see weapon swapping as effective there.)

On what are you basing this? waiting for up to 2.9 seconds in bettween each stormstrike _CANNOT_ possibly be better, without doing the nunbers each second you have to wait is 10% longer time in between your SS, over a long fight that is massive.

The problem I find with Battle Anhking is that you lose all your buffs which for me is like 800 AP which pretty much gimps my dps hardcore for the rest of the fight. Downgrading looks great, never thought of it.

Out of curiosity, does anyone happen to know if dodge/miss/parry/crit/hit/block/glance are all calculated at the same time, or are they all independent of each other?

Back to the totem twisting, I use this macro:-Question mark icon helps a lot, the icon of the macro will be replaced to the spell what's next
-reset=8 helps to put down windfury in time (before the effect goes off from the weapons) but it works only if you don't spam the macro. It resets only after 8 seconds of the last push.
-If I can't use stormstrike in time I press "alt" and the hotkey of the macro so I skip a stormstrike and jump to the first spell: Windfury Totem

This works quite well for me, I've been using this for like two weeks. My melee group is very happy and it is an upgrade to my party's dps, though my dps goes lower. Of course I can't use totem wtisting on every fight, but there are quite a lot where it's a big boost.
Malan: if you keep spamming this macro and you can cast stormstrike every time it has cooled down the wf effect will be always up on the weapons of your group, I tested it and it's working fine.

I have been looking at the Lootzor links that people have come up with for enhancement shaman, and many of them seem to be wrong to me. Shouldn’t strength be half the value of attack power? Shouldn’t agility be .884 compared to 1.0 crit rating(25agi=22.1cr)?

A.
1.0(CR) 0.7(HiR) 0.5(AP)
So would that mean also that> .25(STR), 0.884(AGI) ?

B.
1 CR = 1 STR = 2 AP = 1.43 HR = 0.9 HasteRating
1.0(CR) 1.0(STR) 2.0(AP) 1.43(HiR) .9(HaR)
So would that mean also that> 0.884*(AGI) ?

So putting these on top of each other to make them easier to compare>
A. 1.0(CR) 0.884(AGI) .25(STR) 0.5(AP) 0.7(HiR) ??(HaR)
B. 1.0(CR) 0.884(AGI) 1.0(STR) 2.0(AP) 1.43(HiR) .9(HaR)

So which is right, A or B?

I could be completely wrong about all of this, but if I am right then could we please update the first page? Lootzor doesn’t allow me to enter haste rating, is there something else I could use to find gear based on the above values?

Thanks in advance!

1 Strength is 2 AP without buffs, so for points considered, Strength will be considered double as valuable as AP. It makes absolutely no sense for strength to be half value for AP. I think you might have been thinking in reverse in terms of math.

Just offhand, STR can be modified by Kings, AP can't. If you haven't included that, I'm sure there are 100 other variables that are also left out of these formulae.

Pretty much, after modified by kings, you only need 22 effective agility (24.2 after) to almost reach 25 actual agility. As a result, its easier to view 1 agi as 1 crit rating. If you want to be really precise, its slightly worse

No I hadn't thought about kings, and yes I got my str/ap backwards. Thank you

__________________

The answer is: Attacktable, that means for non special attacks they are all dependent.

Attack table - WoWWiki, the Warcraft wiki

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http://code.google.com/p/wowequipoptimizer/

First time posting heh. Our first VR kill last night, first night of us wholeheartedly attempting him, seemed people had issues dodging giant balls of electricity our actual first night :P

With the tank threat on that fight, I swapped to rockbiter just to see if it made a difference. While I had windfury up, I hit the threat cap very rapidly and jsut stood there. Rockbiter seemed to work better because not only could I control my threat generation to a much finer degree, but I was able to just keep swinging if for nothing else than the Light heals.

Horrible threat cap on that fight, but that is how I crept around it. I believe i swapped my offhand to windfury midfight to get more light procs, but eventually threat was too much, and had to battle ankh just to stay alive (ironic huh), swapped windfury on both weapons, and went balls out till he died without pulling agro.

Seemed that maximizing my damage only maximized my threat. Figured I'd throw in my two cents

On VR I hold back shocks and Shamanistic Rage for the first 30 to 60 seconds, then go all-out; last time I popped heroism at like 20%, pulled aggro at 10%, died, ankhed up and finished it off. Besides 1 prot warrior we used 2 ferals, which helps IMO, they have better threat gen when they don't have aggro since they do more white damage. Parse if anyone cares.

First of all I must say reading this thread has been very interesting... all the discussion of weaponspeed now lead to this question:

My weapons at the time are Black Planar Edge (2.7 attackspeed)in the MH and the Season2 Arena weapon (2.6) in the OH. Today I got myself the Mace "Fool´s bane" (2.6) from Illhoof and now I am wondering if the 4 dps deficit to my Black Planar Edge is compensated by the 2.6 attackspeed which better matches my OH so my MH WF proccs are not eaten by my OH. Or is the little slower attackspeed of my MH of no importance and I have leveled blacksmithing for a reason?

Please let me know what you think...

Wouldn't it make much more sense to either:

a) sub in some arcane resist gear,
b) periodically drop a few heals (terokk's gavel!),
c) twist WF/Tranq Air

and continue to use optimal weapon imbues?

This way you add some extra value while keeping your dps at its maximum.

On VR I:
1) Pull aggro
2) Put on my shield
3) Dodge, dodge (double Mongoose)
4) Eat the knockback for a free deaggro!

I've managed to do that with Gruul, but not Void Reaver, yet. Just stopped attacking on Gruul when I reached 2nd aggro, dodged 4 hateful strikes before the next warrior in line caught up. Void Reaver I usually just "vanish" and keep going after. Our Paladins are pretty good about rebuffs, especially Salvation on myself and our Elemental shaman.

__________________

~ Aeo - Level 70 Draenei Shaman ~
~ Guild: Reclaimed / Realm: Skywall ~

Why would you want salvation after battle rezzing? Best thing to give you at that point is Might and Wisdom so you can catch up in DPS a bit.

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[18:56] <Yabden> i dont want to live in a world where goa is better

See Dakashi's post - a modified version of Pater's sim shows more damage by waiting for the WF cooldown.

This is one of those problems that can't be properly simulated though, because sims don't screw up. They react much faster than human players do. Actually gaining DPS by this method would probably take some practice. If you delay hitting WF waiting for the cooldown, and then a white hit procs WF and puts you back on cooldown before you can get the stormstrike in, you're going to do less DPS than you would have if you'd just hit SS as soon as it was up.

I've been playing around with using a WF monitor and delaying stormstrike, and I like it so far, but individual results may vary.

Has anyone else tried out the Cystalforged Trinket from the Ogri'la Rep?

I think its a good trinket, but after reading all of this for the first time, Im really not sure how it stacks up to the other trinkets listed which I dont really have access to before the other melee classes in my raids

Im definately a sucker for a fast offhand as well...gotta change that asap.

Crystalforged Trinket - 1min CD.

The rule I generally go by is if I think there is more than 1.5 seconds left I just go ahead and SS, otherwise I wait. I've gotten pretty good at guessing the lag on the windfury timer. As long as the little ball that I go by turns red as I SS, I'm happy

I think there is a line between the loss of SS dps caused by waiting and the increased DPS from more windfury procs due to guaranteeing that the SS has a chance to proc windfury. 1.5 seconds seems like a good compromise.

Hello, I've been reading here in these Forums for some days now. That's because I'm a Resto-specced Shaman and i want to try out Enhancement, and here is so much information about it.
Now my questions regarding hit and miss:

I got many different views about it, some say 100 hit rating is enough, some would swear going to the cap of 261 is best.(I'm not sure if its really the cap, this is what i've been reading here most). So could you clarify what hit percentage is now really the cap and if it's worth to reach it?

an example one many i can't explain to myself:
It's from WWS, an i always see high miss percentages, i'm wondered about
WWS link
looking into his armory(Link), he got around 10% hit from gear and 9%from talents

so he should miss aroung 5-6% on white hits, depending on how much you need to reach the cap. on yellow he should miss at all from what i've heard.
but if you look at WWS his white hits miss around 17% and wf at 8,7% and SS 1,8%.
How do you explain that? Does void reaver dodging counts as "miss" there?
Please explain me this. Note that this high miss percentages appear on almost every enhancement shaman i see on WWS.
and sorry for the bad english.

Anything that isn't a hit, crit, or glance, is considered a "Miss" for the total miss category. If you expand the melee attacks you can see a breakdown of the actual misses, dodges, and parries.

I've recently dropped about 90 hit rating and haven't looked back. Sadly some bad gearing choices were made before I tried this out.

For quite a while now we have worked with the concept that 'small haste effects which take weapon speed from just above 1.5 to just below it will decrease dps'. This is due to interaction with the WF cd timer, and was shown via sims, but I have not seen any ingame tests done to see the actual effects.

So, out I went to do a bit of testing on blasted lands mobs. I used 2 'Sergeant's Warhammer of ***' (2.1 speed, and level 12 greens, hence low dps numbers) as the weapons and first used 104 haste rating, the second set was done with 73 haste rating. The 104 haste rating set had a ring and trinket slot empty, the 73 had some green items in them to make sure no AP was lost when the Band of Devastion was removed. I also did not use my helm, as it has a haste proc meta gem. Total change in stats between the 2 sets - first set has 31 more haste rating than second, all other stats equal.

First set, 42 minutes 8 seconds (2528 seconds), damage done: 1000054 of which 59.5% white, 40.5% WF. Speed with flurry = 1.47.
Total dps: 396 of which white dps: 235, wf: 160

Second set, 43 minutes 17 seconds (2597 seconds), damage done: 1000194 of which 59.3% white, 40.7% WF. Speed with flurry = 1.51.
Total dps: 385 of which white dps: 228, wf: 157

Now clearly, as we all know, just dealing 2 million total damage is not enough to really conclude anything with the extreme randomness of shaman dps, however this does seem to show one thing, even when crossing the '1.5 speed barrier' with a small gain in haste rating we still see a gain in dps. WF dps was close enough to call as no change, clearly not the drastic loss the sims had lead us to believe, and if there is a loss it would then need a less than 31 haste rating change, basically a value so small as to be of no consequence (smallest single haste gain I could find was 26 rating).

The white damage however is clearly boosted by the presence of the haste, a 3.07% gain in white dps from 2.95% of haste looks to be a correct value. Total dps went up by 2.86% when going from 1.51 speed (flurried) to 1.47 speed (flurried). It would be nice to see some more data collected, but from this atleast it seems there is no point at which haste is bad at all, and it is infact a very strong stat for us no matter what our current flurried weapon speed is.

Heya Khlysti, thanks for the great testing!

I personally think that lag has something to do with weapon hit times, so it might be a slightly better test to have something like 1.4 flurried speed versus 1.65 flurried speed.

In any case, those results are very interesting - thank you for them.

__________________
----- sig ---------------
Discoepfeand - rogue
Disquette - shaman

Hello everyone =)

I was wondering if there was any reason I should get the [Merciless Gladiator's Cleaver] over the [Merciless Gladiator's Pummeler] for my new OH.

I only ask because the axe gets mentioned alot, and the mace does not - someone please enlighten me if there is actually a reason that the axe is better?

Also I would appreciate it if someone could have a look at my armoury page and see if I'm doing anything wrong? Personally i'm pretty happy currently - Bare in mind we're about to kill Gruul, So thats about the the level of loot I have access to. Planning on swapping out +Hit trinket with the Bloodlust Broach soon, and also the Hourglass trinket with the Dragonspine Trophy when nubcakes drops it.
Currently also grinding heroic mana tombs for the uber totem.

Thank you all in advance!

http://armory.wow-europe.com/charact...aenor&n=Roonie Here's me!! please don't be too mean!! ~Hides~

It's possible to add that to your profile.

- User CP (top of this page)
- Edit WoW Profile
- Character Profile URL

I'll be honest, your raid leader should be shot for thinking like that.

Not only does it

A. generate 50hp or some ridiculous low amount
B. It's a proc that doesn't go off all the time and very sporadic
C. Generates increased threat to you
D. Doesn't increase your dps in the slightest in fact it hinders you because you could be using Mongoose or +20STR enchants on 2 weapons.

BM is a cute enchant but you'd want it on a FAST weapon so it would proc ridiculous amounts to make it even quasi useful (which it isn't) but since you are going with 2 SLOW weapons it's a waste.

Smile, nod your head, and put mongoose on your weapons and throw down a healing totem. There you just did one better.

I used a BM enchant for kicks during KZ to test it out, the proc rate is horribly low. In my previous guild the MT was using it on his tanking weapon and over the course of a boss fight he'd have maybe 2 or 3 procs. It heals around 200 to each player I think. But as noted, definitely not the preferred enchant for someone filling a DPS/Support role.

Those are both precisely what I thought and countered to his request, thank you guys for verifying this for me before I wasted mats on a "trash" enchant.

I planned to go with crusader until I could get 2xPotency.

I had that enchant on my Grim tor's axe for a while on my tanking warrior. Really didn't do much for me or the group as a whole. When I slapped on mongoose, worlds collided, the angels sung, and tanking got a heckuva lot easier.

Why not Mongoose? Has that been discarded as a 'good' enchant after all?

No, mongoose is pretty much the best enchant. Crusader is nice and cheap, and slightly better than potency.

Well, quite honestly unless my guild can provide most of the mats - I can not afford it on one weapon, no less x2.

And honestly to some extent I have been slightly confused about haste benefits on shaman, I read one place it says haste is great for shaman, but then it also says when we are hasted - that we actually have a dps lose because of the WF cooldown.

And, I also read that while mongoose x2 can stack, but I read the haste will not stack on top of flurry.

So if this is incorrect, please set me straight.

Haste effects always stack, and unless you have lot and lots of haste modifiers it will always be good.

I used to include sta/int in my lootzor, but there are two problems. First, it's a very subjective valuation, not at all objective like the calculated numbers we're working with from sims and modeling. Second, as has been said, it's often irrelevant. When I started boosting my AP more (as a result of the modeling in this thread) I found I could easily refill from Shamanistic Rage and maybe an Unstable Mana Potion (which I have plenty of from daily questing). Once you have enough mana to drop totems and shock for two minutes until Shamanistic Rage is back up, more mana is worthless. Similarly, if you have enough stamina to survive random AOE ability #34, if your healers are decent, more stamina isn't providing you with additional value -- and, like you said, almost every piece, rogue or hunter, has stam on it anyway.
If your guild is decent it should provide voids from disenchanted epics -- the rest would be up to you. Farm ore/herbs, start mailing all your greens to an enchanter friend and have him mail back dust/shards. That said, Mongoose does stack on top of Flurry, Mongoose > Crusader > Potency, though for very specific values of passive haste (which nobody has unless they are in BT gear) I would actually expect that Crusader > Potency > Mongoose.

PS. Yes we are referring to one-hand, not off-hand, when we talk about arena OH. However, it so happens that most shamans with access to Karazhan purples or crafted T2/T3 will actually use this weapon in their off-hand initially.

I just don't think we have the void's, my shaman's guild has been a revolving door of sorts and not alot of epics have been able to be busted - the rest I can get.


As far as the Arena OH, that is what I expected - because that is what I am saving my current points for atm. Because I am one nether shy of my Drake-> Dragonmaw upgrade for my MH.

Thanks for the response.

Go for 2x Crusader in the meantime, then.

Well if you do 8-10 daily quests every day you should be able to afford (depending on AH prices on your server) 2x mongoose in a week or less.

I haven't gotten around to figuring out which way is better yet. The main reason I had Rising Tide in my MH is because of the orc racial. I don't know which way is better. I'll probably try switching it to Syphon MH in the near future.

On a different note, I just realized that I've been doing the math incorrectly for haste rating. The 36 haste rating on Valestalker Girdle comes to 40 'points', not 32.4.

-Edit-
Oh yeah, I forgot one of the reasons I've been puting Syphon offhand is in my current gear setup when I have Flurry and Bloodlust active it puts the Syphon at 1.47 speed. On a lot of fights I get Bloodlust multiple times, so I figured it might be best to put the axe MH. I don't know for sure, though. I'm just guessing.

Lootzor seems to be a bit off, its not displaying much of the T4/T5 pieces and even some T6 is missing. "Missing" as in, it goes from epics to blues but not Tiered items.
Used these values - lootzor.com - World of Warcraft search and rate items - profile your wow character

No value assigned to strength, of course it won't show tiered items (which have lots of STR)

Whoah how'd that happen. Thanks.

Yes, and also one reason I dont like T6. T5 has agility and also a much better distribution of the valuepts. Damn, I really dont understand why enhancement T6 must suck so much.

The set really doesn't suck, its better than T5 even though it has wasted points in mp5.

But it has the potential to be so much better. Sad how the old T4/5 problems are creeping up again. Although, T6 gloves still rock.

It's just sad there are non-set items that are superior for every slot. At least T5 had a great helm and gloves, T6 is consolation prizes across the board. Hopefully at some point they'll go through and re-itemize without the mp5, it's frustrating that they haven't learned from the mistakes with T4 and T5 though.

On an unrelated note, Thottbot now has pawn/lootzor style item scoring. The item search also gives you the option of only listing high scoring items, it's nothing new but since lootzor still doesn't include haste rating it's useful. The scores it gives are pawn style rather than the normalized values lootzor gives.

On that subject, I threw in all the best of slot mail pieces I could find into excel and calculated the difference between non-set pieces and Skyshatter including the 4 piece bonus. What do you guys think? If you take the formula at face value, it's better to get the non-set pieces and forget about Skyshatter. However, when I plotted it out like this, I noticed that the non-set pieces, being obviously hunter gear (they even look like hunter gear from what I gather) they have very little +hit. Now I know +hit has a relatively low value, and I've proven earlier in this thread that dropping really low isn't bad as long as you replace it with other stats. On the plus side though, going with non-set means more agility vs. crit rating, which means you will gain dodge too. Also, the non-set pieces are easier to get as they are sooner in progression and you would have to compete with less people (hunters only vs. warriors and other shaman specs)

So what do you all think? Is it better to go with the non-set? Or is there some reason to try and get the Skyshatter at least to the 4 piece (probably go with non-set legs still, as they are the most gain)?

BTW, I used epic gems in the gem slots for the calculations, so 10 str for red, 5str/5crit for yellow, and 5str for blue.

Edit: Sorry, forgot the conversion I used. Str=1.1, Agi=.97, CR=1, HR=.7, Atk Pwr=.5

So I think taking the ratios (ie dividing them all into 1) of these numbers would give the the associated weights for plugging them into lootzor?

So then weights are:
CR = 1
STR = 1
AP ~ 0.456
HR ~ 0.699
Haste ~ 1.11
Agi ~ 0.98

Giving this lootzor. Well unfortunately without the haste rating as of yet. Sorry if this is obvious to everyone, I'm just putting it down as I found the equivalencies confusing for a bit as my gear choice process basically revolves around finding weights to put in lootzor.

I'm starting to think personally that assigning some weight to stam is worthwhile. While I think that stuff like fel leather is a good gearing up option there aren't many boss fights (nor trash clears) I can think of where I would be happy to be kited out in items that haven't spent some of their item budget on stamina. I quite often find myself swapping for example gauntlets of the dragonslayer for fel leather gloves to boost my survivability in trash clears and aoeing boss. While armor can in almost all circumstances be considered useless I'm not so sure about giving stamina a weight of 0 or not including the dodge component of agility in it's item weighting.

Post 872 -
My opinion is to always take an upgrade when its available. If that means that a Tiered Set item is better than what you have, even though there is 'better' available, I'd still take the upgrade. I never wait for a drop and take things when I can. Look at the lootzor item listing for our currently accepted stat weights. T5 and T4 are at the very bottom, right next to each other. I think that Blizzard may have just declared set items to be the easiest item to get and therefore should be the least beneficial. That's contrary to how most players feel though - set items are "cool" and have bonuses and a unified look to them.

Post 873 -
I think all you've done is normalized the values to 1, its still the same ratio as if you hadn't done that. I just edited the front page with some material that Rob gave me and things should make more sense now. It also has a correct lootzor link on it finally.